Spinner

The Doors, 'Break On Through (Live in New York)' -- Song Premiere

Back in 1970, the Doors played four nights at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum. The shows, which would be the band's last in New York City, were part of 12 recorded for the 'Absolutely Live' album. "We would use one song from here, one song from there to make a live album. We didn't really think about using an entire show because we thought, 'Well, let's take the best song out of each night and put those together as an album,'" Doors guitarist Robby Krieger tells Spinner.

But Krieger believes that ultimately didn't work. "When you do that it's kind of sterile. It's like it doesn't really have the flow of a live show," he says. "And even though there might be little mistakes and sloppy drum part of guitars here and there it doesn't matter. At the time it did, but 40 years later it doesn't matter."

Having let go of their past fears of embarrassing mistakes, the Rock And Roll Hall of Famers are now releasing all four of those shows as part of a six-CD box set, 'Live in New York.' For Krieger, the collection brought back a lot of memories. "I go back and listen and I hear little things that I'd totally forgotten about," he says. "And it's kind of neat to go back to those shows because it all kinds of melts together after a while. 'Oh yeah, we played Felt Forum.' Each one is different. I'm sure you can tell the last show Jim [Morrison] is pretty wasted. It still works."

We don't doubt it, especially if the final night sounds as good as this previously unreleased version of 'Break On Through (To the Other Side)' from night number two, January 17, 1970. In it, the band gets in touch with its jazzy side. "Our whole goal was to be spontaneous and play stuff differently from night to night and that was part of the fun of it," he says. "And that particular version of 'Break On Through (To the Other Side)' works more in a jazzy, bluesy feel. Jim kind of messed around with it in the middle there, not that he didn't always do that. But it's a particularly cool version I think."

Listen to 'Break on Through (Live in New York)'

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Dan

Summer of '67, first car, first road trip, Pacific Coast Hiway, while listening to Light My Fire on the radio. Fantastic!!

November 17 2009 at 8:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
christen1246

If you weren't around during the summer of 1967, when LIGHT MY FIRE was literally burning up the charts, you missed an incredible experience in time and space. I was on Cape Cod at the time. And, years later, Vermont-New Hampshire, riding home alone on a dark, stormy summer night, listening to "Riders on the Storm" on the radio, remains one of the most chilling, thrilling memories of that time. Jim Morrison will never "die." He simply broke on through to the other side, and remains there, watching us and smiling.....

October 12 2009 at 11:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mojorisin

there will never e another one like you ,jimbo rocks cant wait to see on the other side.

September 11 2009 at 3:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Monkeybuisness

Robby Krieger claims above that scattering songs from several concerts worked 40 years ago and that all the imperfections are acceptable today. Although he failed to mention that The Doors did exactly that for their 1997 box set. Four discs that Doors fans bought for around $20 a disk. After 10 years, that whole box set has been resold to their long time loyalists in an attempt to make money off those who support them. This kind of marketing is exactly what the doors (Morrison) were famous for opposing. The 1st disk of the box set "without a safety net" and the 3rd disk "the future ain't what it used to be" were combined into one CD "essential rarities" and sold with a bonus track "woman is a devil" for $13, right after the '97 box set sales started declining. The 4th CD was "band favorites" which is a list of 15 songs that box set buyers already had. The second CD "Live in New York" is the selection of Madison Square Garden songs that were jumbled together (opposing Kreiger's above comment) as a single concert, and now those same live songs, from the same venue, on the same dates, are being resold for an additional $80 to get the concert the way it should have been released in the '97 box set. I will buy these new NY concerts for $80 in November. Because these remaining band members continue to scam it's loyal supporters out of GREED, I will continue to build my collection off of imported material from ebay. Material that the Ray, Robbie, and John won't profit from. One last note: All you dedicated fans that bought the Matrix double album are suckers. I bought the whole box set (kiss the show version) containing all 4 sets off of ebay, and it sounds just as good. That double CD has half of the material available (2 sets of the 4 sets). The remaining doors will resell you the songs you already bought on the Matrix album when they release all four sets in another box set in the near future.

September 01 2009 at 8:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to Monkeybuisness's comment
mojorisin_577

Absolutely AWESOME! Great mix by Bruce Botnick! Felt Forum Box set will be the best release in the Doors album history!

August 30 2009 at 12:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zach

That's a kick ass version of Break on Through! Wow! Love to hear new music from the Doors, and can't wait to buy the Felt Forum Concert CD's.

August 29 2009 at 9:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jaynne

Oh man. What talent - what a shame to become so addicted to "stuff" & end up bloated & broken. Hopefully its lessons to fans to stay straight. Will forever enjoy Jim's tunes.

August 29 2009 at 8:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
NOOCHMAN

I was 17 when I first heard the doors & I still love them. Doors fans pick up the book "No one gets out alive".

August 28 2009 at 7:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Pamela

Oh Boy! The Doors LIVE! The Felt Forum concerts were some of their best shows!

August 28 2009 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
young

jim morrison what a damn waste of good talent not one singer today has what he had they all try to hard, marty casey lovehammers is the rawest talent today and singer writer, prince in his.....day.

August 28 2009 at 6:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply