The Doors play their last concert with Jim Morrison at The Warehouse, New Orleans in 1970
The existing audio recording of the concert it’s one of the most sought after by the band collectors and fans
The Doors play their last concert with Jim Morrison at The Warehouse, New Orleans in 1970
In late 1970, The Doors were recording what would be their final studio album with Jim Morrison. During that period the band did some warm up shows where they premiered some of the new songs, though the band lost a substantial amount of popularity due to the 1969 infamous Miami concert where Morrison insulted the audience and allegedly exposed himself, they had recovered a big part of their audience and fans with the release of the critically acclaimed “Morrison Hotel” album in early 1970. Five days after Jim Morrison’s 27th birthday and having played the day before at the Dallas State Fair, (available through audience recording), the band plays at The Warehouse, the most important venue in New Orleans and the southern U.S, without knowing it would be the last time the four of them would play together. That evening, a burned-out Morrison finally gave up. Towards the end of the show, where they played some new songs including “Riders on the Storm,” the controversial and legendary singer sat down on the stage smashing it with the microphone under a massive feedback noise until the wood on the floor started to crackle. The keyboardist Ray Manzarek later said that he could see Morrison’s energy leaving his body, there was no more to squeeze out of it. After that, the band went back to finish recording “L.A Woman” and Morrison left the U.S to live in Paris with his girlfriend Pamela just a few months later. On July 3rd, 1971, Jim Morrison was found death at age 27 in the bathtub of his apartment in Paris by Pamela, the official cause of death was heart failure. The Doors went on to release two more albums without Morrison, but with very little success. They finally called it quit officially as a band in 1973. The three remaining members got together in the studio as The Doors one more time to record music to Morrison’s spoke voice poetry tapes which resulted in the 1978 album “An American Prayer.” The Warehouse concert tapes are one of the most sought of by Doors fans and collectors. Allegedly the full concert was recorded on the venue’s soundboard that evening but the tapes never were released to the public and has also raised some skepticism from some significant names related to The Doors such as the Road Manager Vince Treanor. Shortly before passing away in 2013, Ray Manzarek allegedly met with someone who owned the tapes of the concert; apparently the tapes got thrown out after the venue was closed several years later and remained untouched until somebody came across them. The current owner of the tapes denied Manzarek an audition of it without being financially rewarded and allegedly demands a high and undisclosed sum of money to pass the tapes to The Doors estate. Besides being the last concert, the band did with Morrison, another reason why the tapes are so sought after is because it contains the full and rare live recording of “Riders on the Storm” with Jim Morrison. A cut out version of the song can be heard on the audio from their previous concert the night before, at the Dallas State Fair.
The alleged setlist for the concert was:
1 – Roadhouse Blues
2 – Back Door Man
3 – Love Her Madly
4 – When the Music’s Over
5 – Riders on the Storm (Aborted)
6 – Ship of Fools
7 – Crawling King Snake
8 -L.A. Woman
9 – Hyacinth House
10 – Maggie M’Gill
11 – Been Down So Long / “Maggie M’Gill” continued
12 – I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man
13 – Who Do You Love?
14 – There’s a Palace in the Canyon
15 – Light My Fire
16 – Summertime / Instrumental/”Light My Fire” continued)
17 – Love Me Two Times
18 – Riders on the Storm
19 -Soul Kitchen
20 – The End
Watch this short documentary clip about The Warehouse venue and The Doors last show there
Listen to the last Doors concert with Jim Morrison available on audio, Dallas State Fair, December 11/12, 1970 (late show)
Look at the photos from The Doors last concert with Jim Morrison at The Warehouse in New Orleans
Watch more The Doors related videos
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