July 12, 1968, The Doors, the freshest sound to come out of LA during the psychedelic years, live at the Seattle Center Arena. Six years after the World’s Fair, in a hall often used for hockey, a clean cut and hopeful 15 year old takes his bus transfer and finds his seat with about 5,000 other fans.
These were the heady days shortly after the release of Waiting for the Sun, the Doors third album. The sound was edgy and tight, a perfect vibe for the times and the group. The Viet Nam protests were in full bloom, the Yippies were planning for big things at the upcoming Democratic convention in Chicago, and students had occupied Columbia University. In Europe, it was the Prague Spring and student protests in Paris. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated, in June Andy Warhol and Robert Kennedy.
Jim Morrison was the ideal bard for America of the day, delivering his wild Irish poetry over the electric Renaissance sound of his band mates.
The only real peer to Dylan as a rock poet at this time, Morrison was having fun bringing his lizard King persona to life for the crowd. The set included mostly materiel from their latest album, Waiting for the Sun. The cover of “Hello, I Love You” was a bit lackluster, but everything else came across with conviction. Particularly powerful were “The Unknown Soldier” and “Five to One” (they’ve got the guns but we’ve got the numbers), synching with the restive and antiwar currents that were swirling amongst young people at that time.
Drummer John Densmore was in splendid form, sitting high above the rest of the band, setting the broiling beats that defined the Doors sound. One of the better and jazzier drummers in rock, it was easy to see in a live environment just how much he contributed to the drive behind Mr. Morrison. The highlight of the night was “When the Music’s Over” from their Strange Days album, as perfect a piece of rock psychodrama as has ever been performed. From the “screaming of the butterfly” to the wide range of dynamics, the interplay between all the Doors as musicians and of course the climactic announcement of “we want the world and we want it… NOW!” Densmore’s drums really punctuated that number, like a fire axe breaking through a door, to unleash the flames contained.
No riots, no arrests, no drunken drooling of profanities, just rock ‘n roll and poetry perfectly combined and delivered; that was the Doors in the shadow of the Space Needle.
The Doors still capture for me at that moment and with that album the pulse of youth, 1968. Casualties of the music industry, of stardom and drugs, they were never the same for me after that release. In the summer of ’69, the Doors returned to Seattle in our version of Woodstock (in Woodinville), the Seattle Pops Festival. I attended Sunday only, with the likes of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Ike & Tina Turner, Charles Lloyd and Led Zeppelin also on the bill.
What a world of difference between the two shows. Morrison was drunk and stoned, incoherent, singing different songs than the band was playing, an embarrassment to his band mates. In a modern karaoke night, he would have been laughed off the stage.
Less than a year after the Pops Festival, Jim Morrison was found dead in Paris, following Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and however many servicemen in Vietnam. In their wake loomed disco, Watergate and Gerald Ford. I’m thankful that I got to experience, live and sober, Jim Morrison and the Doors.
the Music of What Happens 
Actually the Doors Played Seattle Twice. 1968 and 1970. The 1970 show was a bit adrift and there were only a couple of decent tracks from the show. The Doors did not play from March 2 1969 until June 1969 because shows cancelled after the Miami show. Jim was with the band 1965-1971, so JIm died 13 months after the June 1970 show in July 1971.