Soft Parade Tonight
Movie Fresh Perception
by Dean Gray
May 19, 2010

“The Doors – tonight at the Aquarius Theatre” was the sudden radio announcement that drew us to Hollywood Boulevard standing beneath giant neon painted heads of Hair, the rock musical playing there. By word of mouth (and radio waves) a snake-like line of fans impatiently filled the sidewalk amidst drifts of recreational cannabis.

It was shortly after the Miami incident and the night was still hot. We were expecting testosterone controversy and excitement - pure Morrison.

We’d drive anywhere to hear the band with three hit albums. After flicking our Bics at the first tour with Light My Fire at the Long Beach Arena, the idea of a Hollywood concert was enough to make us rabid. It was July, a warm summer night in 1969 in that lazy summer we were about to enter as seniors in high school.

We calculated it best to wait until the second show figuring it would last longer and weren’t disappointed when it clocked in at two and a quarter hours, an endurance rarely equaled by any headliner for a second show. Edits from the evening went into “The Soft Parade” with both the night’s first and second shows independently later released.

The evening was billed as "Elektra Records Showcase Concert Series Presents...” and upon entering all were handed “An Ode to LA While Thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased” Morrison’s very rare poem, a handout on textured paper - ephemera lost but never forgotten. The rich baritone of the then bearded Lizard King thrilled us with an evening of hypnotic musical theatrics sailing the crystal ship with the whisky child.

We didn’t much realized how extraordinary the situation. Obviously it was just another rock show; still it was somehow different and special. We could hear “The End” but ignored it.

We who were about to rock saluted the end of those strange days in that innocent ’69 summer, opening new doors of perception - walking through a new frame of reference into the light of a new dawn upon us.

Also remembered dearly was a rarely seen and forgotten titled movie – captured images never forgotten but fragments and shadows now stuck with his voice.