The Door's Concert

My friend Doug Stamm, who was kind enough to leave a greeting in the site guestbook today, reminded me of a Door's concert, which my old 70's band, the Morning Reign, also played, and, I've come to find out, he coincidentally attended. I believe it was 1969 or 1970.

Here's the story: We had just finished our set. We played about an hour, right before the Doors were to go on. We hadn't entered our psychedelic era yet, and we still resembled Paul Revere and the Raiders more than the Doors. Anyway, the Door's roadies were busy moving our equipment to the rear, and were setting up their equipment as fast as they could. It was taking awhile. Back in those days, everything had a wire, the equipment mostly sucked, even the good stuff, and it all had to be set up flawlessly for anyone to sound decent. The crowd was getting restless. I am standing backstage, watching it all happen, just pumped, diggin' the scene. All of a sudden, I notice the Doors drummer sitting on a couch, quietly, a few feet from me, smoking a cigarette, with his sticks in hand. He is barely noticeable, given the angle of the couch, which looks completely out of place back there among the velvet curtains and curtain ropes. A few seconds later, while the smell of pot and patchouli wafted up from the rows of Doors fans to my left, I hear the promoter yelling, at the top of his lungs, as he runs past, "where the #@*% are those mutha@#*^&#"s, and bumps this guy in a black leather coat who has parked next to me. I am thinking, well, I just saw the drummer, and then I realize, I am standing next to Jim Morrison. After the bump, kind of all at the same time, he looks over at me, not with a perturbed look, but a look as if to say, "I'm right here".

I admit, before God and everyone, that on a couple of occasions over the years, I have inflated this story a bit, maybe even made reference to having a short conversation with him, you know, chatting him up. Well, not true. But our eyes did meet, and I remember those eyes, still. Perhaps he was thinking, hmmmm, that's that lead singer guy, from the other band, that Ric guy, hmmmm, he was awesome the way he was doing those steps on that Don and the Goodtimes cover, I better be really good tonight.