A friend sent me this a few weeks back and I just got around to watching it tonight. I'm somewhat speechless because I've never seen an hour long live Doors segment.
This ain't rock 'n' roll, it ain't the blues. It's performance art. It challenges your mind, it challenges your senses.
Whether you like the Doors or not, I think they get an "A+" for originality. There never was another band quite like them and I doubt there ever will be.
[Edited on 12/27/2014 by robslob]
Thanks 
thanks
My favorite band of all time. No one else ever sounded quite like them; Manzarek's psychedelic organ and his dual duty playing the bass line. Long live the Lizard King - cause we all know someone else was buried that week in Paris. Probably hanging at KMart with Elvis - and criticizing his plebeian tastes
Manzarek's psychedelic organ and his dual duty playing the bass line.
Watching/listening to this video, Manzarek's organ certainly dominates the sound. And I've heard he usually played the bass part with the foot pedals. But the bass is really prominent here and I was watching Manzarek's feet and I have my doubts that it is him. It appears to me that The Doors had a bass player positioned behind the stacks of amps playing along with them. Anyone?
[Edited on 12/28/2014 by robslob]
I still have the VHS tape of this show I bought back in the 80's.
I remember reading an interview with John Desmore awhile back that he was a little freaked out because Jim took LSD before the show and they knew it was going to be recorded.
Manzarek's psychedelic organ and his dual duty playing the bass line.
Watching/listening to this video, Manzarek's organ certainly dominates the sound. And I've heard he usually played the bass part with the foot pedals. But the bass is really prominent here and I was watching Manzarek's feet and I have my doubts that it is him. It appears to me that The Doors had a bass player positioned behind the stacks of amps playing along with them. Anyone?
[Edited on 12/28/2014 by robslob]
i've never heard of them using a bass player live. i know they did a few times in the studio
Manzarek is playing the base keyboard with his left hand, and the organ with his right.
You can see the smaller bass organ positioned on top of the other organ.
no secret bass player in the shadows.
and they were my favorite band of all-time from like age 12 up until about 5 years ago when the Allman brothers moved past them for me.
I had the pleasure of seeing Ray/Robbie on their final two tours. Ray just struck me as being a truly decent human being. Never saw the Doors; but they still were my favorite with ABB second
Never read the book but am very familiar with the issue/trial. Money does have a lot of sway; but by the same token Ray/Robbie refused to ever let their "Jim imitation" singer sing "The End" as he felt that song belonged solely to Jim. I have no clue what Manzarek's finances were at the time; though he was worth supposedly 25 - 50 million at his death.
Manzarek's psychedelic organ and his dual duty playing the bass line.
Watching/listening to this video, Manzarek's organ certainly dominates the sound. And I've heard he usually played the bass part with the foot pedals. But the bass is really prominent here and I was watching Manzarek's feet and I have my doubts that it is him. It appears to me that The Doors had a bass player positioned behind the stacks of amps playing along with them. Anyone?
[Edited on 12/28/2014 by robslob]
Manzarek didn't use foot bass pedals he used a keyboard that was perched on top of his other keyboard. if you look at all of their available video you'll see it on top. Live it was just Ray,But as mentioned they did use a bass player on certain tracks in the studio.
[Edited on 12/29/2014 by chasenbluesman]
Ray used a Fender Rhodes Piano Bass as others have mentioned. Here's one in action:
Thanks Pdouble for the clarification on how Ray played bass while playing the organ. Especially, thanks for the picture, chasenbluesman and the video, Bhawk. Ray Manzarek was SUCH an incredible musician............but I guess it's no different than a great keyboard player who has incredible separation between the right and left hands. Still, it amazes me that someone could be that hot on the organ and be putting out a bass line at the same time.........and some really hot bass lines...........
[Edited on 12/30/2014 by robslob]
Another interesting thing from this show is a couple things that Densmore mentioned in his book...
Jim was way gone for this one. Pupils pinned waaaaaaaaay back.
Densmore had a short chat with a young member of the camera crew that he remembered for the kid's striking presence and weird name...Harrison Ford.
