Toronto Rock & Roll Revival,
Varsity Stadium, Toronto, Ontario, Canada - September 13, 1969.

1.Intro - When the Music’s Over 12:33
2.Break on Through 3:56
3.Backdoor Man - Maggie McGill - Roadhouse Blues 7:10
4.The Crystal Ship 3:21
5.Wake Up! 1:53
6.Light my Fire 12:31
7.The End 16:10

Comments:

As well as The Doors being one of the major acts scheduled for the Toronto Rock’n’Roll Revival, other bands that joined this bill included; Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino, Chicago, Alice Cooper, Bo Diddley (& female singer Cookie), Lord Sutch, Tony Joe White, Doug Kershaw backed up by Daniel Rea, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys as well as other celebrities including Rodney Biggenheimer from L.A and poet Garden Moore from Vancouver. The festival was hosted by Kim Fowley - Master of Ceremonies.

Kim Fowley and other promoters saw that ticket sales weren’t selling fast as they had only reached a dismal 800 by Monday September 8, so he invited John Lennon to appear. Lennon accepted Fowley’s invitation and got a band together which included Yoko, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Alan White. This was Lennon’s first post-Beatles performance and was the first time that the Plastic Ono Band had performed. The concert was a sell out - all 22,000 seats were immediately snapped up once there was news that Lennon was to going to perform.

This festival has also become to be known as the "Toronto Peace Festival", as commonly referred by John Lennon.

According to Melinda McCracken, columnist for the Globe & Mail, the festival had run fairly smoothly and was supposedly a much better festival then the Toronto Pop Festival, a two day event that took place in 1969. The "Toronto Vagabonds" (a local Motor Cycle Gang) had escorted The Doors with their motorcycle entourage from the airport to Varsity Stadium. The Toronto Rock ’n’ Roll Revival was a 12 hour event that was seen as being successful.

There could be a number of reasons for The Doors attending this festival; one possible reason could be that Morrison insisted in performing at this festival as he truly believed in the earlier part of 1969 that "Rock Was Dead" and he saw this "Rock’n’Roll Revival" festival as a means of reviving "The Death Of Rock" or perhaps The Doors just simply wanted to get back on the road and prove to the public that they could still put on a good show.

At first, there was some talk as to who was going to follow The Doors. John and Yoko didn’t want to follow The Doors and neither did Little Richard. In the end, The Doors went on after John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Prior to The Doors performance, Paolo Ramos remembers Jim standing in the one of the rows and watching Jerry Lee Lewis perform "Mean Woman Blues" during that afternoon and also remembered seeing Jim watching other acts as he (Jim) stood on the staircase which lead to the back stage. Photos of Jim at this festival show him as having shaved off his beard and his hair cut right down to collar length, which would’ve surprised a few people. Film maker D.A. Pennebaker was responsible for filming this event however The Doors didn’t allow any cameras to film them performing, most probably they didn’t want anyone to see a plump Jim Morrison.

The Doors came on after sunset and opened up with "When The Music’s Over", Morrison’s singing sounded lethargic and this version of "When the Music’s Over" was very different to most of their other performances. Then they went into "Break On Through" and Jim’s vocals and spirit seemed to have picked up a little bit, followed by a unique medley where they blended "Back Door Man" with portions of "Maggie M’Gill" and "Roadhouse Blues". In fact according to Crisafulli (1995), this was the first time that The Doors had supposedly played "Roadhouse Blues" in front of an audience.

The Doors went onto play one of their earlier numbers, "Crystal Ship" and later played "Wake Up" combined with "Light My Fire" which was welcomed by their audience. During a small break between "Crystal Ship" and "Wake Up/Light My Fire", some guy in the audience yelled out the "F-U-C-K" line from a County Joe song:

"Give Me An ‘F’ "

"F"; a few members of the crowd replied.

"Give Me A ‘U’ ! "

"U"; they replied.

"Give Me A ‘C’ ! "

"C"; the crowd replied again.

"Give Me A ‘K’ ! "

"K"; replied the few who were remotely interested in continuing with this guy’s joke.

"What do you get ?" he asked.

"FUCK !"; they answered lightly laughing, as the joke died in the ass quicker then it first emerged.

Judging from the audience’s feedback, they seemed to be a little bored with the concert, probably because Jim wasn’t delivering a 100% effort. Ramos remembered that Jim looked sort of "lost" and he and the audience "felt sorry for him". Apparently Jim hardly moved at all during the whole concert, instead he just stood there at the microphone stand. During the introduction of their last song, "The End", Jim started talking to his audience and told them how grateful he was to be up there on the same stage with other artists whom he admired ever since he was a kid:

"You know I can remember when I was ....in the ur about seventh or eighth grade. I can remember when Rock’n’Roll first came on the scene..and for me it was um ..a very liberating experience because it first opened up a whole new strange catacombs of wisdom, that I couldn’t remember and I didn’t know about and I couldn’t see any equivalent for in my surroundings. And that’s why for me this evening it’s been... really a great honour to perform on the same stage with so many illustrious musical geniuses."

The Doors then continued playing and finished of their set with "The End". Morrison seemed as if he was putting in the effort to wrap up a somewhat below average show, however it didn’t quite work. The Toronto Rock ’n’ Roll Revival was definitely not one of Jim’s better shows, as Greg Thomson remembered:

"Morrison was trashed & out of tune, & only stayed upright by hanging on to a column. I was very disappointed, as he was a hero of mine."

According to Melinda McCracken, columnist for the Globe & Mail, she thought that The Doors’ appearance was "almost anti-climatic" although the group’s sound was clear and "Morrison’s dramatic voice came across pure & clean."

The Harbinger’s comments were in par with that of Melinda McCracken;

"The headliners of the show were the Doors. They gave a performance which was largely perfunctory, the songs they played were all two years old. Jim Morrison didn’t pull down his pants or anything; in fact at times he looked in need of some reviving himself, wearing old denim clothes and looking over-weight. He could have been Arnold Palmer wearing a wig. They were definitely anti-climatic, some of the old Doors excitement was still there but it was subdued, almost weary".

On a slightly more positive note, Roy Carr of New Musical Express noted;

"To bring the most glorious day to a close The Doors, and in particular Jim Morrison, performed most of the familiar material off their first album bathed in a blue spotlight. The music that the Doors create is very sombre, dramatic and thoughtful, as expected they were a resounding success and a great finale."

It wasn’t as if The Doors hadn’t performed any good ‘Post-Miami’ shows; they played a magical show at the Auditorium Theatre on June 14 in Chicago and also three sets were they delivered a great performance at the Aquarius Theatre on July 21 & 22 earlier in the same year - these were just a few examples of the great shows that The Doors had performed.

The Doors had shown that year that they could still play some kick-ass music, but more importantly they also showed the potential they had for many more future shows to come, such as the well received Felt Forum concerts they played on January 17 & 18 in the following year.