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There is a (beautiful) scene from a (beautiful) film where a never more brilliant Vincent Cassel becomes the weapon with which Kassovitz represents the metaphor of human alienation in front of an ever more voracious and destructive society. A society that has an insatiable need to devour desires in order to create new ones. Crazy people, crazy market, crazy certainties. You need new friends and new enemies and – when you no longer know where to find them – your own face becomes the enemy.
Vinz then looks at himself in the mirror – he sees himself, but he doesn’t notice. Vinz sees only his dreams gone up in smoke, a continual loss of contact, an eternal suburban banlieue. He looks at himself, and sees his enemy. “Are you talking to me, you bastard? You talking to me? You got a problem with me, you bastard?” Yes, it is indeed with you, Vinz.
I wondered why I was thinking of Vinz while waiting at the ticket booths of Wembley Arena. I thought about money that is never enough, and always runs out; I thought about dreams that are never enough and always crumble. I thought about the best years, which are always the ones you've already lived. I thought about Stephanie, who doesn’t know the Doors, but sings Gainsbourg to me, and she knows how much I love listening to her. I thought about the heroes, all young and beautiful, I wonder why heroes always die young and beautiful.
I was looking at Ray Manzarek, and he was my mirror.
“Are you playing for me, old man? You talking to me? You got a problem with me? Is it really me you’re mocking, old man?” I watched him, seated at his pathetic organ, always the same sound, always the same posture, the same sardonic smile, the same old, worn-out “Leslie” effect.
I watched Ian Astbury, and he was another mirror, a metaphor of human inability to accept the inevitable end of all things, to grow old with pride and respect.
“Everything falls and is destroyed” Fedor once told me, and I didn’t believe it. But what do you know, Ian? You, and your mediocre Cult. Same voice frighteningly similar, same dark glasses, same clothing, moves, postures. A puppet challenging the ridiculous, gripping the curtain tightly at the ends, fearing it might close.
“Death is not the end” sang the great electric poet, and maybe there was a sarcastic side hidden in his words. I have never loved The Doors with visceral passion. I loved Roadhouse Blues (they’ll play it as an opener), I loved Alabama Song (placed in the middle), I loved “L.A. Woman” and “Soul Kitchen” (they’ll close with those). Above all, I loved the character, I asked God many times to be like him, and in some way, I was. I loved his obsessive search for perfection, for poetry, for the myth of the beautiful and damned man. I loved his myth of the continual search for oneself.
The arena was half-empty, and I also loved this fact. People with whom I share nothing, rock & roll seen not as joy but as bragging. “Astbury’s head as my trophy for you, gentlemen!” The dreams of “Lome Me Two Times” (fifth or sixth in the setlist) are sold as memorabilia.
Robbie Krieger plays as if he’s on any record from the golden era. Completing the line-up are two session-men thrown into the big circus called “The Doors of the 21st Century”. Buffoons like them. Everything sounds exactly like on the record. I look at my pockets and they become my mirror, but I had to be there, I owed it to myself, and for my dreams, which I still tenaciously continue to preserve. I owed it to the images running behind them, a giant screen reminding me of the best years in the history of music, a sweet amarcord that assumes tragicomic forms placed there.
If you weren’t there, don’t feel bad. Listen to your copy of “Morrison Hotel”, Astbury doesn’t change a thing, and how could he. Buffoons them, because “Death is not the end” for the God of Money, and buffoons the others, because the God of Money buys everything, even resurrection. And a buffoon am I, who still believes in the great electric poet.
“Is it possible that man, knowing his dreams, and seeing them tarnished, nourishes the slightest respect for himself and others?” Fedor once told me. And for one last time, let me look at myself in the mirror.
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