The Doors - 'Infinite' (SACD Box Set)

 

In 1970, I was living in Boston, Massachusetts, and working on my PhD in Itô calculus at M. I. T., and Jerry (my future husband) was working on his PhD in Applied Physics at Wellesley College.  Jerry and I were living together, which in 1970 was considered quite provocative.

One early March afternoon in the Stratton Student Center of M. I. T., I was thumbing through ‘Boston After Dark’, which was a weekly entertainment newspaper, and saw an advertisement for a Doors concert at the Boston Arena on April 10th.  Jerry and I saw The Doors the previous July at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood, CA, and it was quite a show.  So I hurried to the Boston Sears Roebuck, where they had a Ticketron (a computerized event ticketing company) outlet.  At Sears, I scored two $6.50 tickets for the late show, which cost $14.30 with the 10% Ticketron fee.  Opening my purse, I realized that I had a ten and threes single dollars bills, I managed to find four quarters, but I was still 30 cents short!  Deep in a corner of my bag, I found two dimes, but I was still ten cents short.  A very strait-laced looking guy in a three-piece polyester suit behind me, who was there to get circus tickets for his family, gave me the extra 10 cents.

Later that day, Jerry came home and proclaimed “I scored two Doors tickets!” to which I replied “Me too, early or late show?” “Early show” said Jerry, I replied, “I’ve got late show tickets” We laughed, and Jerry said “It looks like we’re seeing the Doors twice!”

The day of the show

Neither Jerry nor myself had classes on Friday afternoons, so we went to see our “connection” Larry, a.k.a. “Lucky Larry” who played trombone, and was attending Berklee College of Music.  Larry was a fellow Brooklynite, and a friend of a friend.  He had hair that went halfway down his back, a long beard and always looked completely disheveled.  Larry wore a huge belt buckle that had “LUCKY 13” engraved on it.  He lived in a turn of the century tenement building that had a bathtub in the kitchen of his apartment.  We bought an ounce of Oaxacan buds, two Thai Sticks (Thai buds on bamboo sticks, and tied with hemp string), and four “hits” of “Clearlight Windowpane” acid, which was LSD on a very small triangular shaped piece of red gelatin.  Larry would go on to become an in-demand session musician, toured with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and played on countless television and radio commercials.  In 2024, Larry and I, are still in contact.

We left Larry’s, and went back to our apartment, smoked a joint, and had a bite to eat.  After we ate, while rolling joints for the show, we toyed with the idea of doing two hits of windowpane each.  We dropped a hit a windowpane, and as we were ready to leave, Jerry said “C’mon Babs, let's do the other hits!” I agreed, we ate the other two hits, and we headed for the bus stop.  On the bus, and halfway to the Boston Arena, we had an “acid shiver” and we were “off to the races” so to speak.

When we arrived at the arena, there was a carnival atmosphere of people selling tee shirts, rolling papers and pipes, weed, acid, uppers and downers - you name it.  We went inside, found our seats, smoked a joint and waited for the show to start.  The lights went down, and a band called “Axis”, an uninspiring blues trio, were introduced.  Next up was folk singer Gordon Lowe, who played solo with an acoustic guitar.  We couldn’t hear Gordon over all the heckling and booing, the poor man received.  Forty-five minutes later, the Doors came on stage to cameras flashing and the entire audience on its feet letting a roar.  Jim Morrison was clearly drunk, but in a jovial mood, and the early show was very cool.

After the early show, we were ushered outside, where it was pouring with rain.  We found a dry area under some scaffolding, smoked a joint and giggled in delight at our acid induced euphoria.  Jerry said he was thirsty, and asked if I was too, and told me “Wait here Babs, and I’ll run across the street, to the store”.  While Jerry was gone, two girls who were drinking beer a few yards away from us started screaming at each other; the next thing I knew, one hit the other one in the head with a beer bottle, and ran away!  People nearby thought that I hit her, and started shouting “That's not cool, why did you do that?” at me.  The girl who was hit, got up on her feet and told them “It wasn’t her” and then she took off with her head bleeding.  By now I was more than freaked out, I lit a cigarette, and noticed two cops getting out of their patrol car, and people pointing in my direction.  Both cops started walking quickly straight towards me, my heart starting pounding and my hands started shaking thinking they thought I did it.  One cop put his hand on my arm and said, “Excuse me, young lady” as they both hurried pass me.  A sense of relief came over me, and I started laughing and couldn’t stop.  Jerry came into view with two bottles of orange juice in his hand.  As we drank the juice, I related to Jerry what just happened, causing him to laugh and pass orange juice through his nose.  By now, it was time to go back inside the arena for the late show.

 

For the late show, scheduled to start at 10PM, we had better seats that were ten rows back from the stage.  It wasn’t until midnight before the Doors hit the stage again.  By midnight, Jim Morrison was an inebriated mess, but managed to keep it together. I remember Jerry commenting, "Jim should stick to pot and acid."  At 2AM due to Boston’s curfew laws, the power to the stage was cut except for Jim’s microphone, which was powered by a separate P.A.  Realizing he had a live mic, Jim quickly used it to rant and curse.  Ray Manzarek grabbed Jim and pulled him offstage, but lost his grip once the two reached the wings.  Running back to the mic, Jim told the crowd, screaming: "We all should get together and have some fun, because the assholes are gonna win if we let them".  The promoter, not wanting a riot on his hands, decided it was best to let the Doors perform one more song. The band came out with Manzarek on guitar and Robby Krieger on bass and did an early rendition of "Been Down So Long," which would appear on the ‘L.A. Woman’ album the following year.

After the show, there were no more buses running, and we couldn’t find a cab, so we walked the few miles home, singing Doors songs, still tripping our brains out.

Today's freeload is The Door's 'Infinite', a 6 SACD box set of their studio albums:

• The Doors
• Strange Days
• Waiting For The Sun
• The Soft Parade
• Morrison Hotel
• L.A. Woman 

The albums were remastered from the original analog source tapes by Doug Sax and original Doors engineer Bruce Botnick.  High frequencies, low frequencies, and those in between--they're all here, and make it seem as if the Doors are playing in six feet away from you.  This is the definitive digital audiophile edition.

 

 For the freeload, tell us about a concert you attended, that turned into a fiasco.