'Tedious.' 'Stale.' 'Ugly croaks': All the times L.A. Times got Jim Morrison and the Doors all wrong

'Tedious.' 'Stale.' 'Ugly croaks': All the times L.A. Times got Jim Morrison and the Doors all wrong

Even if hindsight is 20/20, it's fair to say the Los Angeles Times was never too keen on the Doors, at least not during the band's explosive rise out of L.A. in the mid-1960s. 

In honor of today's anniversary of frontman Jim Morrison's death in 1971, we revisited our archives to see how we reviewed the hometown heroes' local live performances in the '60s and '70s. It wasn't pretty.

"Perhaps Morrison should give up performing, which seems to be an effort for him, and concentrate on reciting and writing poetry," Donna Chick wrote in The Times in 1968.

Ouch.

Here are all the times we got the Doors wrong (or right, depending on your perspective).

John Mendelson, reviewing a show at Aquarius Theatre, July 21, 1969:

• " …an hour and a half of music and/or theatrics that was best described as dull."
• "[Morrison’s] singing was quite timid. Each of the many times he confronted a vocal part above his ever-diminishing range he crept cautiously into a lower register, thus avoiding the ugly croaks that were once so much a part of his singing and rendering such screamers as 'Light My Fire' quite unmoving."
• "Ray Manzarek, resplendent in a sweaty undershirt, contributed his usual pedestrian organ attempting throughout the show to deafen where he couldn’t excite."

Linda Matthews, reviewing a show at Shrine Auditorium,  Dec. 23, 1967:

• “'Tedious' is the only way to describe the four-hour marathon of hard rock and psychedelia at the Shrine Exposition hall Saturday night."
• "What they were waiting for was the Doors, who finally showed up at midnight and plodded routinely through half an hour of album cuts."
• "The Doors, whose usually poetic improvi sations are shaded with psycho-analytic overtone, were not at their best."

Pete Johnson, reviewing a show at Hollywood Bowl, July 5, 1968:

• "The Doors' concert at the Hollywood Bowl Friday night should have been an exciting event, the high point of the career of a local rock quartet whose struggle for success has taken more than two years. Instead it was a bore, the most disappointing pop concert at the Bowl since the Jefferson Airplane and an ill-mannered audience made a shambles of the place last summer."
• "Again, the audience was largely to blame, but much of the fault lies with the Doors, particularly lead singer Jim Morrison, for failing to gain a rapport with the crowd."

(Note: The Doors' July 5 date at the Bowl was released on record as “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” in 1987 and reissued in its entirety in 2012.)

Tom Paegel, reviewing a show at Anaheim Convention Center, July 15, 1967:

• "Morrison’s voice did not come over as well as it has in past performances. There was a note of hoarseness during several numbers. Words sometimes were inaudible and he seemed to be off-key. Their busy concert schedule may account for this, but the Doors are capable of doing better work."

Robert Hilburn, reviewing a show at Long Beach Arena, Feb. 7, 1970:

• "It took a long time Saturday night at the Long Beach Arena to get the Doors’ fire lighted. For the first hour they seemed far from the sensual, exciting, distinctive rock outfit they once were."
• "But the Doors…seemed stale and unexciting."

Donna Chick, reviewing a show at the Forum, Dec. 14, 1968:

• "'Light My Fire,' one of the songs everyone waited for, was a disappointment. The song dragged on so long that it failed to even vaguely resemble the original recording and instead sounded like a last-minute improvisation."
• "Morrison seemed content to wallow in the pleasure of his own talent, the audience becoming hostile."
• "The audience got something different â€" the amphibian prince began to recite his own poetry. The effect would have been better in a small smokey room filled with intimate friends. But the majority of the audience who had paid to see the 'Fantastic Door' was obviously disappointed. Applause and cheers were replaced by endless obscenities and irritable silence."
• "Perhaps Morrison should give up performing, which seems to be an effort for him, and concentrate on reciting and writing poetry. He doesn’t need the bulky load of screaming girls to feed his ego â€" it’s alrea dy overweight."

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