Doors open to patient fans

By JAMES MCNAIR


Everything, they say, comes to those who wait, but Doors fans have had to be especially patient.

The band's weekend gig at Wembley Stadium came 32 years after the death of Jim Morrison, and was the band's first performance in London since 1968.

In the run-up to this, their last hurrah, the keyboardist Ray Manzarek and the guitarist Robby Krieger have been embroiled in some testing lawsuits.

Having declined to play with his former bandmates, the original Doors drummer, John Densmore, won an injunction forcing them to operate under the moniker "The Doors of the 21st Century".

Then, in June this year, the former Police drummer Stewart Copeland successfully sued Manzarek and Krieger for breach of contract.

To cap it all, Morrison's parents have also taken legal action, alleging that the present incarnation of the band has misappropriated their son's poetry and likeness.

For the fans at least, it seemed there was nothing to forgive. Hence a huge roar greeted Manzarek and Krieger as they walked on stage with Ian Astbury, former singer with The Cult.

Behind them, Morrison's face materialised on a huge video screen, the legend "An American Poet, 1943-1971" beneath it.

From the outset it was clear that Astbury was portraying Morrison, his voice, clothes, hairstyle and stage moves amounting to an Olympian Stars in Their Eyes performance.

Indeed, when Astbury's image was first relayed in real-time by the video screens against a shape-shifting oil-lamp pattern, the "Morrison lives" illusion was so convincing that it provoked an audible gasp from the crowd.

From When the Music's Over to Love Me Two Times to Alabama Song, the Doors exuded finesse, power and a sussed use of dynamics.

Krieger's stylish flamenco intro to Spanish Caravan, and Manzarek's deft Baroque soloing on The Crystal Ship, also made nonsense of the oft-levelled criticism that the Doors were merely a bloated blues band.

There was, however, something cringe-worthy about the 65-year-old Manzarek's hippie and free love-speak between songs.

"Ian tells me you can buy magic mushrooms in stores here!" he enthused at one point, while before People Are Strange, he invited us to "play with each other's genitals ever so gently."

Still, the Doors' set had narrative drive and climax, and when they introduced a number of songs from LA Woman, the crowd voiced deafening approval.

That album, the punters know, was Morrison's swansong, and his untimely death in Paris precluded much of it from being aired live. Until now. Thanks to Manzarek's ghostly electric piano, Riders on the Storm was a treat, but it was LA Woman, replete with Super-8 footage of Morrison and a youthful Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore, which upped the poignancy quotient.

As they closed, somewhat inevitably, with the Krieger-penned Light My Fire, you could not help thinking Densmore's attempts to prevent Krieger and Manzarek performing what was, after all, their back-catalogue absurd.

In Ian Astbury, moreover, the latter pair have an able, if shamelessly imitative successor to Morrison. "Me and this lot: who would have thought it?" the Merseyside-born singer asked before leaving. Who indeed?

- INDEPENDENT