The Doors Are Open

Liner Notes

It was September 1968, the venue was The Roundhouse in London’s Chalk Farm, by far and away the best rock spot we ever had, and the nearest thing to a genuine San Francisco ballroom.

The sheer power of The Doors’ renditions of “Light My Fire” and “When The Music’s Over” convinced all who were there that we were witnessing history.

Whilst the power of that night can never truly be recalled, by luck or judgement The Doors’ sets were filmed and the best appears herein. Watching them perform “Spanish Caravan” and the rest after all these years has reinforced stated opinion that the night at the Roundhouse was the best concert I have ever attended – anywhere…

– John Platt

Track Listing

Intro	Crawlin’ King Snake
When The Music’s Over	Back Door Man
Five To One	Jim Morrison Interview
Spanish Caravan	Wake Up
ICA Gallery Interviews	Light My Fire
Hello I Love You	The Unknown Soldier
Interviews #2	Conclusion
Back Door Man

Credits

Produced by	Jo Durden-Smith
Directed by	John Sheppard
DVD Producer	Matt Friedman

Archivist Notes

In September of 1968, The Doors fly to Europe for a three week tour of London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm. As part of the tour, they agree to allow a BBC television crew to film their London Roundhouse shows as a part of a documentary they are putting together that will be shown on Granada TV. “The Doors Are Open” is the result. The film makers do their best to cast The Doors as a purely political group by integrating stock footage of Vietnam, riots and other controversial subjects of 1968. They also seem to pick the political quotes from the interviews and take them somewhat out of context. All is forgiven though, as this contains amazing concert footage of The Doors in their prime as a group.

Random notes:

This documentary is the original source of Ray’s famous “2-12-39” quote. As the band walks through customs in London’s Heathrow airport, they are asked their name, age and occupation. Ray answers, “Raymond Daniel Manzarek. Born 2-12-39. Musician, Organist”.
According to Greg Shaw’s book “On The Road”, the original title for the documentary was going to be “When The Mode Of The Music Changes, The Walls Of The City Will Shake”.
Footage of Ray singing “Hello I Love You” in the Roundhouse soundcheck was later used on the “Live In Europe” in perfect context when talking about the Amsterdam show where Jim was in the hospital and Ray had to take over vocals.
As a Doors fan, over the years you may have just thought something just wasn’t quite right about the audio on this release. That maybe the audio was a bit slow, or the voices of the band were a little lower than in real life. If you thought this, you were correct! Due to some transfer issues going back and forth between European and US standards and frame rates, the releases were actually running slightly slow.