Robby Krieger, John Densmore and Bruce Botnick have revisited concert recordings from The Doors’ 1970 Roadhouse Blues Tour for Unbound And Dangerous, a 16-track live collection due October 23.
by Paul Cashmere
The Doors will release Unbound And Dangerous on October 23, bringing together performances recorded during the band’s 1970 Roadhouse Blues Tour and newly mixed by longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick. The project has been assembled by Botnick with surviving Doors members Robby Krieger and John Densmore, and will be issued on CD, two LPs pressed on translucent red vinyl, digital platforms and Blu-ray.
The release revisits a period when The Doors were expanding the concert material from their fifth studio album, Morrison Hotel, into longer and more forceful live performances. The new collection draws primarily from recordings made in New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Detroit, with “Soul Kitchen” sourced from a July 21, 1969 performance at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood.
The Blu-ray edition gives the archival recordings a new technical treatment, featuring Botnick’s Dolby Atmos mix alongside a high-resolution stereo presentation at 192kHz/24-bit. The approach places the surviving recordings within a contemporary audio format while retaining performances originally captured more than five decades ago.
Unbound And Dangerous is structured around the harder-edged side of The Doors’ concert repertoire. The set begins with “Dead Cats, Dead Rats” before moving into “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” and the extended “When The Music’s Over”. The sequence then moves through “Roadhouse Blues”, “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”, “Back Door Man”, “Five To One” and “Build Me A Woman”.
The second half includes “Light My Fire”, “Crawling King Snake” and “Soul Kitchen”, followed by “Bring Out Your Dead” and a 15-minute performance of “The End”. The concert recording closes with “Thank You And Good Night”.
The project’s title and accompanying liner notes draw on the idea of The Doors as a band whose live performances could carry an element of unpredictability. Densmore recalls recognising Jim Morrison as “dangerous” from the beginning, describing him as talented and determined to challenge accepted ideas. For Densmore, Morrison’s lyrics represented freedom of speech and personal freedom.
Krieger takes a different view. He says he did not regard The Doors as particularly dangerous within the broader cultural upheaval of the 1960s. He points instead to the political and social turmoil surrounding the band, including the Vietnam War, while recalling occasions in Miami and Cleveland when audiences became highly volatile.
Botnick connects the concept more directly with the concert experience. For him, danger was closely associated with excitement, with audiences attending Doors shows partly to discover how far Morrison might push a performance.
The recordings date from a pivotal point in The Doors’ history. Morrison Hotel was released in February 1970 and became the band’s fifth consecutive United States Top 10 album, reaching No. 4. Its blues and rock orientation represented a shift from some of the more overtly psychedelic qualities associated with earlier Doors recordings.
The album also supplied the material for the subsequent Roadhouse Blues Tour, during which Morrison, Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger performed across the United States. Recordings from the concerts were subsequently used for Absolutely Live, released in July 1970. That album became The Doors’ first live release and also reached the US Top 10.
Unbound And Dangerous therefore returns to the same concert era while presenting material beyond the selections previously issued on Absolutely Live. The involvement of Krieger, Densmore and Botnick provides continuity with The Doors’ original recording history, while the new mixes offer another way to hear performances from the period.
The album also documents the four-piece lineup of Morrison, Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger at a point when the group’s live performances were becoming increasingly expansive. With Morrison’s death in 1971 ending the original band’s recording career, these recordings provide another archival perspective on the final period of The Doors’ existence.
Unbound And Dangerous will be released October 23 on CD, translucent red vinyl 2LP, Blu-ray and digital formats.
Tracklisting
2LP
LP One
Side One
Introduction
“Dead Cats, Dead Rats”
“Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
“When The Music’s Over”
Side Two
“Roadhouse Blues”
“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
“Back Door Man”
“Five To One”
“Build Me A Woman”
LP Two
Side One
“Petition The Lord with Prayer”
“Light My Fire”
“Crawling King Snake”
“Soul Kitchen”
Side Two
“Bring Out Your Dead”
“The End”
“Thank You And Good Night”
CD
Introduction
“Dead Cats, Dead Rats”
“Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
“When The Music’s Over”
“Roadhouse Blues”
“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
“Back Door Man”
“Five To One”
“Build Me A Woman”
“Petition The Lawd”
“Light My Fire”
“Crawling King Snake”
“Soul Kitchen”
“Bring Out Your Dead”
“The End”
“Thank You And Good Night”
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