Notes

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Soundboard Recording > ? > CDR


The Doors open their second set in Frankfurt with real heat that results the best recorded live version of 'Five To One' with Jim's rant "Get the whole fuckin' thing together for just one more time!" This rather short, one and a half minute long material that survived probably comes from 'The Doors - Live In Europe' film, the only release that contains this segment, the only existing material from this show originally recorded by the local TV crew.

*According to Greg Shaw, the late show set-list possibly incomplete. Portions of Light My Fire (early show) and Five To One (late show) were filmed and were released in 'The Doors - Live In Europe.


NOTES
from Greg Shaw Stephen Davis, John Densmore and Rainer Moddemann

THE DOORS' FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR ITINEARY
September 5, 1968 - September 20, 1968
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Thu. Sept. 5th BBC-1 TV "Top of The Pops," London, England (with Canned Heat)
Fri. Sept. 6th The Roundhouse, London, England (Early & Late Show with Jefferson Airplane)
Sat. Sept. 7th The Roundhouse, London, England (Early & Late Show with Jefferson Airplane)
Fri. Sept. 13th ZDF-TV "4-3-2-1 Hot & Sweet," Römerberg Square, Frankfurt, West Germany
Sat. Sept. 14th Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, West Germany (Early & Late Show with Canned Heat)
Sun. Sept. 15th Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Early & Late Show with Jefferson Airplane)
Tue. Sept. 17th Falkoner Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark (Early & Late Show with Savoy Brown)
Wed. Sept. 18th Television-Byen, Gladsaxe, Copenhagen, Denmark
Fri. Sept. 20th Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden (Early & Late Show with Jefferson Airplane)

"Lippmann, Rau & SBA" were the promoters of this event and Canned Heat was billed along with The Doors at Kongresshalle. Apparently the Frankfurt audience did not seem to respond to The Doors performance. 'Alabama Song' goes for a mere minute before Jim starts to sing. Later he tries to get the audience's attention by pretending to throw the mike stand at them and even made obscene gestures - but all his efforts were in vain. In an interview with Hank Zevallos of Poppin magazine in the following year, Jim looked back and commented on the European Tour; "The Germans were really boorish, but, other than that, the audiences were really great". According to music reviewer Fred Ritzel, for a Frankfurt newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he concluded that the group's music was "nothing more than a mediocre beat, played mediocrity, mediocre text which had been already countlessly repeated by others" and "The melody, the rhythm and the harmony was restricted to ordinary music". The only praise that The Doors received from Fred Ritzel was that the group's musical technical standard was very professional and more perfect compared to Canned Heat.


Review by Greg Shaw taken from "The Doors On The Road," 1997;
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"The early show goes well, although the audience seems somewhat restrained. While Manzarek's playing is powerful, Morrison is a bit subdued, even tired. Nevertheless, his grotesque laughter during "Back Door Man" elicits cheers from the crowd. The Finale of "The Unknown Soldier" is particularly powerful, with loud, distorted, raging guitar from Krieger, and Jim pushing some real fury into the lyrics. That song elicits the greatest applause of the evening. It is particularly significant for the numerous G.I.s in the audience. The late show opens with a particularly gritty rendition of "Five To One," which concludes with Morrison delivering a nasty, clenched-teeth snarl of "Get the whole fuckin thing together just one more TIME!" His voice is particularly melodic tonight, making his unpredictable outbursts even more startling. After a substantial portion of the audience has already left at the conclusion of the late show, the Doors reappear to do an extended encore with an approximately thirty-minute version of "The End." Portions of this show are filmed by German television (possibly by a station in Frankfurt, which also recorded a number of the Jimi Hendrix Experience shows). The songs televised include portions of "Light My Fire" and "Five To One".
Also performing: Canned Heat
Promotion: Lippmann, Rau & SBA"


Excpert taken from Stephen Davis' book "Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend," 2004 p.282;
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"The Doors brainstormed through Europe, beginning on September 13. That afternoon the Doors taped a segment outdoors in Frankfurt for ZDF-TV's pop show 4-3-2-1 Hot und Sweet, miming "Hello, I Love You" and "Light My Fire." The next night, September 14, they played two rowdy shows at Frankfurt's Kongresshalle, with their friends Canned Heat opening. Several thousand American soldiers in the audience cheered lustily for "The Unknown Soldier." The German kids irritated the band by sitting quietly during the show. Jim tried to provoke them by threatening to impale the front rows with his mike stand but he couldn't get any reaction. They ended the show faster than usual and, according to Densmore, only received polite applause. Jim perked up later when the young promoters gave him a beautiful German girl named Francesca to spend the night with, and they all went out to an Israeli-owned nightclub called Das Kinky.
The Doors flew to Amsterdam the following day. A flight attendant asked Jim for his autograph; he wrote a poem for her on an airsickness bag. "O Stewardess/Observe most carefully/Someday you may pour wine/for the tired man.""


Excpert taken from John Densmore's biography "Riders On The Storm," 1990 p.175-177;
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""You will open ze bag, I will look!" the customs officials barked in their German-accented English. When we arrived in Frankfurt on the next stops of our tour, I thought I was in old World War II movie. Once we got into the country, though, the people were very friendly and I was surprised at how green the landscape was. I thought it was going to be gray. I'd seen too many films stereotyping Germany. The promoters were two young men who were very warm and catered to our very need. They had a vivacious blond in tow who seemed to be available for the groups who came into town. We arrived at the conclusion after the promoters told us that José Feliciano had enjoyed reading Braille all over her chest. (We allloved his version of "Light My Fire," because he had found a way of interpreting it rather than just copying our arrangement.) Another beautiful German woman, Francesca, latched on to Jim. Pam Courson was nowhere in sight, and Jim had started occasionally staying in motels when we were back home. I guess he was available. That night as the curtain rose, I was optimistic about our set. I could feel the audience's anticipation. We roared into "Break On Through" and finished it with a bang. Silence. As we quickly started our second number, "Back Door Man," I could still feel the silence. Maybe they were transfixed by Jim. the song ended and the response was still very quiet. Curious.
We thought "Whiskey Bar" would get a rise out of them, since it was written by one of their countrymen, Munich's own Bertoldt Brecht. Nothing. Quieter still. Maybe the pre-Hitler song was in bad taste. We countinued and Jim started berating the audience for a reaction. He stalked around the stage using the mike stand as if it were a javelin, pretending to throw it into the audience. He got a vicious look on his face and ran from the back of the stage, in front of my drums, to the edge of the stage, threating to impale members of the audience on his mike stand. I thought he was going too far. The audience didn't flinch. Each time he did it, I gasped. We finished the set to the same lukewarm response, and the curtain came down. Everyone backstage was very quiet. The once friendly promoters avoided us. "What happened out there, Ray?" I asked. "Beats me!" I was mad at Jim for being so hostile, but, in retrospect, I think he struck a nerve in all of us. Here was this rock singer, dressed in his "leathers," stomping around the stage threatening violence. He wasn't doing the goose step, but the young Germans got the message. Rage and anarchy. Just what they had been trying to forget since the war. Afterward we were taken to an Israeli club called Das Kinky. It was full of life. My impression was that the young people were trying to make up for what their parents had given in to. The blond came on to Robby after realizing that everyone else is taken - Jim with Francesca, Ray with Dorothy, and me with a German Jewess from the club - but it was to no avail. Lynn was to catch up with Robby in a few days and he was comitted to her, so he passed on the blonde. It was heartwarming that for a few years Lynn had lived the sixties' version of McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City and was now settling down with Robby. Unfortunately, the German girl I ended up with didn't speak a word of English. Excuse me, I didn't speak a word of Deutsch. German is close enough to English that occasionally a sentence would pop out of her conversation that I would understand perfectly. I was worried about making love with someone I couldn't talk with, but we had no problem communicating physically. She looked very exotic sitting on my hotel bed, with her coal-black hair practically covering her face. The problem was that I had to get on a plane the next morning and I had no way to tell her. When morning came and I began to pack, she got the idea. She looked very surprised and sad. I didn't feel too god either; the only thing I could say was "Auf Wiedersehen.""


Review by Rainer Moddemann, The Doors Quarterly Magazine, 1998;
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"Still, after all those years, the first Frankfurt concert is an uninspired standard concert of a band that was at the peak of their career. With a best-selling single, "Hello, I Love You", and a best-selling album, Waiting For The Sun, in the background The Doors began their European tour doing four celebrated concerts in London together with the psychedelic sounds of Jefferson Airplane. In Frankfurt, the next stop, it was all different. There were people attending their two concerts who didn't speak English at all or didn't get what The Doors were doing. There were yelling GIs from the surrounding military stations and patiently listening other Americans. It was hard for the band to get in contact with the audience, especially after the driving boogie of their support band, Canned Heat. The Doors were too different. Jim wasn't feeling well because he had drunk too much Goldener Oktober (a cheap German wine) in the afternoon of the same day. So - that's it. The people left and never came back. They missed the second show which is said to have been much better."