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The Doors - Absolutely Live (1970)

Track listing:
  1. House Announcer 2:40
  2. Who Do You Love 6:02
  3. Alabama Song 1:51
  4. Backdoor Man 2:22
  5. Love Hides 1:48
  6. Five To One 4:34
  7. Build Me A Woman 3:33
  8. When The Music's Over
  9. Close To You 4:04
  10. Universal Mind 4:54
  11. Petition The Lord With Prayer 0:52
  12. Dead Cats, Dead Rats 1:55
  13. Break On Through #2
  14. Celebration Of The Lizard 1:14
  15. Wake Up 1:24
  16. A Little Game 1:09
  17. The Hill Dwellers 2:35
  18. Not To Touch The Earth 4:19
  19. Names Of The Kingdom 0:25
  20. The Palace Of Exile 2:24
  21. Soul Kitchen 7:11

Notes


While this double disc (now combined with Alive, She Cried and Live at the Hollywood Bowl for CD release under the title In Concert) is valuable in that it contains material the group did not release on their studio albums, it's also tilted toward some of their more boorish aspects. Recorded at concerts in 1969 and 1970, this was an era in which Morrison was becoming increasingly dissolute, and increasingly disinterested in the whole rock machine. During much of this set, he seems not to be taking himself or the songs too seriously, tossing flippant asides to the audience that seem to treat the whole exercise as a charade. As for the music, the haunting "Universal Mind" and the basic blues-rocker "Build Me a Woman" are originals that are not found on their proper albums; "Close to You" is a dull Muddy Waters cover sung by Ray Manzarek; "Who Do You Love" is a fair cover of the Bo Diddley standard; and the controversial "The Celebration of the Lizard" is a drawn-out opus that is as much poetry recitation as music. There are also extended versions of "Soul Kitchen," "Break On Through," and "When the Music's Over" that flag considerably in comparison to the sleeker studio versions.