The Doors - Live in Vancouver 1970 (2010)

The Band Rocks The Great White North With This Unreleased 1970
Concert Featuring Guest Appearance By Blues Legend Albert King

Available November 22 From Rhino And Bright Midnight Archives

LOS ANGELES – Four months into the band’s 1970 Roadhouse Blues Tour, The Doors lit up Vancouver like the Northern Lights with an incandescent performance ignited by a rollicking set list, and blues legend Albert King, who sat in for four songs. Rhino and Bright Midnight Archives capture every shining moment with THE DOORS – LIVE IN VANCOUVER 1970. The two-disc set of unreleased music will be available November 22 at all retail outlets, including www.rhino.com, for a suggested list price of $19.98 (CD) and $13.99 (digital).

Recorded June 6, 1970, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek opened the show in high gear, barreling through 15 minutes of raunchy, stomping blues with “Roadhouse Blues,” “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar),” “Back Door Man,” and “Five To One.” Next the group briefly shifted gears, taking a hard left turn into psychedelic territory for a nearly 14-minute take on “When The Music’s Over.”

Midway through the two-hour show, King joined The Doors on stage, lending his trademark stinging guitar licks to covers of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster,” the Motown classic “Money,” and the blues standards “Rock Me” and “Who Do You Love.”

On the second disc, The Doors head for the homestretch with “Petition The Lord With Prayer,” a spoken word piece often featured live, but not officially released until a few weeks after the Vancouver show, when it appeared on Absolutely Live. Nearly 18-minute versions of “Light My Fire” and “The End,” two legendary tracks from the band’s groundbreaking 1967 self-titled debut, close out the show in epic fashion.

“What a funky night,” recalls Manzarek in the set’s liner notes. “Jim singing his ass off with the prod in the butt by a legendary old blues man (King).”

“Jim lit Albert King's cigar, and we were off!” remembers Densmore.

“The Vancouver show was so much fun for me because one of my heroes (King) was our second act,” says Krieger. “Not only did we get to hang with the man, but we convinced him to come up and jam with us.”

Vince Treanor, The Doors’ tour manager, recorded the show for the band on a Sony reel-to-reel using two microphones placed on the stage. While not a multitrack high fidelity recording, it is clean, quiet, and clear, allowing the unbridled energy of the performances to shine through.