The Doors - The Matrix, San Francisco, CA, 3-7-1967

I haven't posted much music by the Doors largely because so much has been officially released, including dozens of live albums. But I'm posting this one both because it's an extraordinary concert and because the official release has been badly botched.

Here's a little history to put this in context. The Doors were formed in 1965. In 1966, they slowly grew in popularity in Los Angeles, but they remained unknown elsewhere. Their debut album, "The Doors," was released in January 1967, but to little notice at the time."Light My Fire" was released as a single in April 1967 and started to climb the charts, hitting Number One in the US a few months later. But this concert took place in San Francisco, before their big success. So even though the Matrix was a small club, it was half empty, and the audience generally didn't know their music.

There's very little in the way of live recordings of the band from this early in their career. But luckily, two nights out of several at the Matrix were recorded (by the club owner) as soundboards and survived. In my opinion, these are the most interesting live recordings by the band, back when they were hungry and full of fire. But also, the sound quality is probably the best of all their live recordings. Because the audience was so small and quiet, these are almost like studio recordings.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the official release of this material has been botched so far. In 2008, there was the release "Live at the Matrix 1967." But instead of including the recordings of all of both nights that survived, this one and March 10th, only selected songs were included. Furthermore, instead of using the master tapes, which the owner still had, a copy of a bootleg was used. Then, in 2017, a 50th anniversary version of the debut album "The Doors" was released. This included a bonus disc that used the superior master tape versions. But only the versions of nine songs from the debut album were included, all from this show on March 7th.

So I've put together what I consider the best version of the March 7th show currently available to the public. I've used the 50th anniversary master tape versions wherever possible. I've used the widely available bootleg versions for the rest, which actually are a bit better than the "Live at the Matrix 1967" versions. To be honest, the bootleg version sounds so good that the master tape versions are only slightly better.

I also made some changes. It's apparent that, at this point in their career, lead singer Jim Morrison didn't want to say anything between songs. There was a lot of dead air, mostly filled with organ noodling and guitar tuning, but virtually no words whatsoever. (Morrison does say one sentence at one point, announcing the band is taking a short break.) So I cut that dead air way down. The other thing was I boosted what little audience applause there was. I didn't change that much, but I increased the volume enough to make the cheering more noticeable.

This is a must-have for any serious Doors fan. I think it's likely that, someday, the whole thing will be released properly, from the master tapes. But until then, this will have to do.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.

01 Back Door Man (Doors)
02 My Eyes Have Seen You (Doors)
03 Soul Kitchen (Doors)
04 Get Out of My Life, Woman (Doors)
05 When the Music's Over (Doors)
06 Close to You (Doors)
07 Crawling King Snake (Doors)
08 I Can't See Your Face in My Mind (Doors)
09 People Are Strange (Doors)
10 Who Do You Love (Doors)
11 Alabama Song [Whisky Bar] (Doors)
12 The Crystal Ship (Doors)
13 Twentieth Century Fox (Doors)
14 Moonlight Drive (Doors)
15 Summer's Almost Gone (Doors)
16 Unhappy Girl (Doors)
17 The Devil Is a Woman - Sittin' Around Thinkin' - Rock Me (Doors)
18 Break on Through [To the Other Side] (Doors)
19 Light My Fire (Doors)
20 The End (Doors)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gbX4Y

The cover photo was actually taken at the Matrix. But they played there a bunch of nights in a row, and this photo is from March 3rd or 4th instead of the 7th. The original version I used, from the "Live at the Matrix 1967" artwork, was in black and white. But I used the program Palette to colorize it. I took the band name at the top from a concert poster advertising a show at a different San Francisco venue around this time period, the Avalon Ballroom.