Ray Manzarek
The Doors live at the Bowl '68

I read the following definition of the noun "shaman" from the Treccani encyclopedia:

"An individual who, after appropriate initiation, acquires practices and techniques such as to enable him to come into contact with otherworldly spirits and to identify with them through possession, demonstrating exceptional healing and divinatory abilities."

I conduct this research for the simple reason that, among the various pieces of information gathered over the years regarding a particular character like Jim Morrison, "rock shaman" is a recurring reference. He himself had spoken of when, as a child, he was in a car driven by his father and passed by a location where a car accident had occurred, resulting in the deaths of several Native Americans. He reported having perceived the mortal aura of the event, to the point of suspecting that the soul of one of the deceased Indians had come into contact with him and never left him from that moment onwards.

Perhaps an urban legend that falls within the allure exerted by an irreplaceable artist who left us too soon, at only 27 years old. What is certain is the undeniable historical value of the documentary "The Doors live at the Bowl '68" directed back then by Ray Manzarek (the group’s keyboardist), which was edited in a restored version in 2012 and delivers us the complete concert by The Doors, held on July 5th, 1968, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. An important performance given that the band, after a splendid 1967 in every aspect, had entered a more difficult phase. Indeed, the recording of the third album "Waiting for the Sun," released precisely in July 1968, had been very troubled due to certain antics by Jim Morrison who had been denied the inclusion of his visionary poem "Celebration of the Lizard" as the B-side of the album (demonstrating the narrow-mindedness of the record executives, unable to see beyond their commercial noses). This fact had triggered a considerable alcoholic reaction on Jim’s part, making him unreliable in the recording studio and in some live performances as well. But fortunately, at least for the moment, the group's internal situation could still be kept under control. And the viewing of the concert at the Hollywood Bowl attests to how much the quartet of The Doors was still capable of not leaving the gathered spectators disappointed. Even more interesting is the fact, as reported, that before stepping onto the stage, Jim Morrison had taken a tablet of lysergic acid. Well, by closely observing the footage of the performance, Jim offers us a dreamy, unpredictable, time-dilated performance, while still being heartfelt like a seasoned showman. For instance, during the song "When the Music's Over," he intersperses long silences, belches into the microphone (eliciting laughter from the audience), and smokes a cigarette between songs with absolute nonchalance. Even more priceless, and for which the ticket price is worth it as they used to say, however, is the moment when, truly lost in his Joyce-style stream of consciousness, he mistakes a moth present on the stage for a grasshopper. These are precisely the moments that fully render the humanity and charisma of an histrionic frontman like Jim Morrison (and I don’t know what the readers of this review might think, but in my humble opinion, in his best moments, he was able to even equal and surpass the skill of another frontman like Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.. ). A historic concert that flaunts The Doors' hits (not just "When the Music's Over," there are the unmissable "Light My Fire," "The End," "Spanish Caravan," "Moonlight Drive," "Back Door Man," "Five to One," "The Unknown Soldier," "Alabama Song" and others interspersed with the declamation of some of Jim’s poetic compositions), a veritable secular rite officiated by a great band (musicians of such stature as Manzarek, Krieger, Densmore are not easily found) led by the Lizard King clad in a pair of tight and sexy brown leather pants and lost in a kind of psycho-artistic trance.

And so I come back to ask myself, in light of the undeniable magic emanating from that concert at the Hollywood Bowl (excellently documented by the film "The Doors live at the Bowl '68" and unmissable for anyone who loves good music), how much of what was expressed live by the rock shaman Jim Morrison was a matter of magical aura? Watching him closely in such a situation, he seemed more like a performer fully aware of what he was representing: an act not only of great scenic and musical art but also an act of political value, a representation of implicit critique towards the modern American and Western society of the time with its social and militaristic hypocrisies, its taboos in the sexual field (with the explicit reference to the unspeakable Oedipus complex present in "The End"). In short, Jim Morrison was a conscious political agitator and it could not be otherwise explained the activation against him of Hoover's FBI, intent on framing him somehow (just a matter of time: after the incredible concert held in Miami in March 1969, Morrison would be indicted for unfounded acts of obscenity in public, ruining both his career and that of The Doors).

A man and artist far too uncomfortable and lucid, so astute as to have understood that the utopia of the flower children towards the end of the '60s would not dent the establishment, it would instead end up being swallowed and degraded to a harmless fashion for the unforgettable Summer of Love (1967). In short, a great figure, victim of his human weaknesses but having rightfully entered the history of 20th-century music, if for nothing else than for the visionary and foresighted "The End," a true memento mori for all that existed then and exists today.