The Doors: Backdoor Man - Seattle 1970
Broadcasting Radio Records CD / LP (December 2015)

There appears to be a new wave of vinyl record and CD publishing companies
releasing material that hasn't found its way out via artists' official sources.
Plural, because Broadcasting Radio Records are a busy lot, putting out stuff by
a wide variety of artists. And in that, BRR isn't the sole label these days so
there is quite a bit going on.

Seattle, June 5th 1970 wasn't a very good night for the Doors. In fact it was a
pretty bad show, disastrous even when compared to some of the outstanding
concerts they had produced earlier on that year. Yet this doesn't stop bootleggers
and publishers of semi legal albums from revisiting the concert - read: from
making easy money on it - time and time again. Not surprisingly of course.
The legend and popularity of the Doors lives on, and with each new generation
of fans comes the need for more than what Elektra and Rhino have been and
are giving us.

This release though is by all means best avoided, and we strongly recommend
an old bootleg CD of this show instead. At the time of writing of course, it's
summer 2016 and hopes are high for this below the standards Doors concert to
find a release that will surpass all existing publications in both content and quality
of sound, because none of them have yet offered the concert in its entirety. Both
'Light My Fire' and encore 'The End', abruptly terminated before completion by
the venue management cutting off power, haven't surfaced yet - I should add
that they are assumed to have never been recorded by at the time road
manager, Vince Treanor; but you never know...

Perhaps the biggest issue about this release is the absence of the song that
makes the concert an interesting one despite its flaws: 'Someday Soon'. A rare
one in the Doors catalogue, never tried for in the studio, performed in concert a
handful of times only. It is a mere assumption rather than a fact, but the reason for
this is quite obvious: the track has been published officially by Elektra Records and
is therefore properly copyright protected; check your copy of the 1997 'Box Set'.

Most probably a copy of 'Jim's Alive - The Ultimate Seattle Tapes' (Tuff Bites, 1994),
this CD / double album could have made for a difference twenty years after that
rare CD with its remarkable cartoon cover (a Tuff Bites trademark, by the way) but
in that it has failed. "For completists only", this would be the verdict of a long time
collector. "Good to have", in case owning or acquiring a copy of the Tuff Bites disc
is not an option. But you will find yourselves listening more often to 'Someday Soon'
which ironically isn't on the album than to the rest of this show which wouldn't have
been a great loss had it not been recorded. But: it's Doors history, people! And more
so than any other taped concert, Seattle 1970 reveals a hard working quartet of
men - of humans, having an off day.

Here's the link to Rainer Moddemann's review of 'Jim's Alive - The Ultimate Seattle
Tapes' on our website - scroll down the page, it's right at the bottom:



© Kevin Chiotis for the Doors Quarterly Magazine Online - August 2016