Although The Doors received some fairly cynical and harsh musical reviews from their last album, "Waiting For The Sun" as well as their recent concert at the L.A. Forum, this didn’t really seem to effect the sales of the group’s new material. Songs from the forthcoming album, "The Soft Parade", were released as a 45 r.p.m single in December, 1968 which included "Touch Me" and "Wild Child". "Touch Me/ Wild Child" had reached # 8 on BILLBOARD’s HOT 100 by January 18, 1969 and peaked at # 3 almost three weeks later on February 15, 1969. In addition to Elektra’s release of "Touch Me/ Wild Child", both songs received national exposure on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour TV show, broadcasted in front of 27.1 million people on Sunday, December 15.

Given that the group’s new singles didn’t reach the heights like their early singles and LP’s did, they weren’t doing too bad considering the media’s negative reviews. Even though Morrison had started to resent some of his audience, mainly the teenyboppers that were attending the group’s concerts to see "Jiiimmieeeee", it’s also ironic that it was primarily the teeny boppers during this period of The Doors musical career that kept the group’s sales of their albums and singles from taking a fast dive into the "abyss" of BILLBOARD’s HOT 100. As well as the external problems that the group was facing at the time from media reviews, there was also a level of internal concern that the group had regarding the selection of venue.

Bill Graham, concert promoter for San Francisco’s Winterland, Fillmore West (formerly known as the Fillmore Auditorium) and New York’s Fillmore East, had warned The Doors that a large venue such as Madison Square Garden would lose that special level of intimacy between the audience and the group which The Doors were renowned for having. Bill Graham had suggested that The Doors would be better of performing at the Fillmore East on four dates as the venue was much smaller and would enable the group to reach out to their audience more effectively. There was also some dispute between Doors manager, Bill Siddons and Bill Graham regarding financial matters from the last concert that The Doors had performed at the Fillmore East on March 22 & 23 in 1968. Despite the financial differences between Siddons and Graham, this was probably trivial in comparison to the honour of performing at Madison Square Garden - something which The Doors didn’t want to give up. Furthermore, the group had argued that they could attract more people through one large concert as opposed to a series of smaller concerts.

Tickets for Friday night’s concert were sold out by Monday, January 20 even though other rock officials believed that the concert was sold out a month in advance. Twenty thousand people turned up at Madison Square Garden with the majority of the demographic break up being teenagers. The cross section of teenagers dressed from ‘Brooks Brothers modern’ to ‘East Village raggedy’ as described by journalist Donald Flynn of the New York Daily News. The Staples Singers opened up the night and were well received despite the acoustical problems that they had encountered.

A maximum crowd capacity of 20,000 screaming New Yorkers had turned up to see their favourite group. Once The Doors took the stage around 9:30 p.m, flashbulb cameras were going off madly in the darkness of the night and light up the Garden like the ‘Aurora Australis’ of the southern pole.

Ever since the L.A. Forum concert, a Doors concert had taken not only a new direction with the group’s musical style but also with the musical arrangement that The Doors would present to their audience. The Doors had brought along their brass & string sections as for this concert and also at their previous concert at the L.A. Forum. Had the Miami incident never taken place, it would be fairly reasonable to assume that the content and format a Doors concert in 1969 would’ve have been similar to what the group played at the L.A. Forum as well as what they played at Madison Square Garden.

The stage was located in the middle of the arena and was raised off the ground. The orchestra pit was located at the feet of the stage from where the brass and string musicians played their instruments.

The Doors had opened their first concert for 1969 with one of their newly released songs, "Touch Me" and had their brass & string sections playing on the opening song. According to one audience member, Richie Wright, he remembered jazz saxophonist, Curtis Amy playing a saxophone solo towards the end of "Touch Me". Unlike the brass and string sections who played in the orchestra pit, audience member "Doc Welby" remembered bass guitarist Harvey Brooks joining The Doors on stage.

The groups’ next song, "The Soft Parade" made it’s live debut performance at Madison Square Garden. Morrison’s vocals on "The Soft Parade" came through fairly strong with him singing;

"Successful hills are here to stay,
everything must be this way,
everything must be this way."

Jim stopped his singing and paused for a moment;

"Sounds good, huh ?" Morrison asked sounding sarcastically.

"Yeah !" the audience replied in unison.

"You don’t wanna hear or have to listen today, do ya ?"

"I wish you would go AWAY ! It’s gonna ruin my DAY !" said Jim possibly referring to the annoying distorted humming sound that was emitted from the sound system.

"Allright" said Jim as the distorting humming sound finally dissipated.

"Now listen to this. You know the words are very important in these songs. You gotta, you gotta recognise that, all right ?"

Jim then picked up from where he left off and resumed with his singing;

"Soft Parade has now begun,
listen to the engines hum"

The Doors then followed through with some more of their new material choosing "Tell All The People" and had their horn and string sections plus Harvey Brooks backing them up. "Tell All The People" received a fairly good audience reaction considering it was the first time that the New York audience had ever heard this song. The horn section on "Tell All The People" is strongly and clearly present on this recording, unlike the recording of the same song that appeared at the L.A. Forum which can hardly be heard.

Following "Tell All The People", "Love Me Two Times" also received a strong applause from the audience as it was one of the group’s more popular songs.

The Doors followed through with "Who Scared You" which was a new song for any Doors fan at the time and was the second time it was played in front of a live audience, the first time being at the L.A. Forum. It wasn’t until February, 1969 that "Who Scared You" would be released by Elektra as B-side single along with "Wishful Sinful" on side A. Elektra had decided to release "Who Scared You" in 1972 on the double compilation album, "Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine".

Similarly to "Tell All The People", the horn section on this recording of "Who Sacred You" once again comes in more stronger than it did for the same song that appears on the L.A. Forum recording. Contrary to the brass sections that came in loud and strong, the string section on this recording unfortunately is virtually inaudible.

As new as "Who Scared You" may’ve sounded to it’s audience, it received a reasonably good audience response. At the end of an explosive version of "Who Scared You", John Densmore threw his drumsticks out to the audience. At one point during the concert Jim had thrown his jacket into the audience who shredded it into pieces, as though it was a piece of the ‘Holy Cross’.

The audience became really quiet when Robbie Krieger took the centre of the stage and tuned in his guitar for the group’s next song. Once Robbie picked those first few flamenco sounding notes on his guitar during the introduction to "Spanish Caravan", a strong applause emerged from the audience.

The group’s next song "Wild Child", received immediate recognition and was confirmed by an overwhelming audience reception. Unlike other live recordings of "Wild Child" which were performed at the Singer Bowl in New York on August 2, 1968 and at the L.A. Forum, one main difference with this version is Robbie’s guitar playing technique. Robbie predominantly plays more slide guitar than in any of the other live recordings of the same song, plus his ad-libbing with the high frequency notes. The combination of Robbie’s slide techniques and ad-libbing strongly illustrates his competency and knowledge of the blues.

No Doors concert would be complete without their ‘creme de la creme’, "Light My Fire". It would be almost a catalyst for a riot to occur if The Doors never played "Light My Fire". Sure enough, The Doors played this song for their New York audience who cheered the group once they played the first few notes. During the musical improvisation of "Light My Fire", the group slowed the tempo. Densmore’s drumming technique on the snare drum sounded like a machine gun firing away, as he pulled the song back up to it’s regular pace. As always Robbie’s guitar solo on "Light My Fire" sounded superb and Ray’s organ playing had that unique sound which became The Doors trademark. At the end of "Light My Fire" Jim started to talk to the audience.

"Does anybody have a cigarette ?" Jim asked his audience.

"Ah, yeah, does anybody have anything or a Marlboro ?" sure enough the audience responded enthusiastically.

"Just a minute ! Just a minute !"

"I need a match" Jim told the audience who immediately light their lighters and matches.

"You know we ..we came from L.A., we came out from the coast so we got a ..we ..we .. practiced for two days, and tried to think of everything we could do you know, and got everything together. So now we’re just gonna have some fun for a while, o.k ?"

The crowd erupted with a thunderous roar.

"If you want anything, you can sit and watch this er boo us away up there, you know. Fair enough ?".

Robbie hammered away during the introduction to "Back Door Man" while Jim gave out his blood curling scream. The audience clapped along to the beat of "Back Door Man". During "Back Door Man" Jim started to address his audience:

"Is anybody in a hurry ?" Jim asked almost knowing what the answer from the audience was going to be.

"NOOOO !!!" the audience replied in unison.

"You know my little brother told me that, you can always tell someone that....doesn’t know how to smoke by the way they hold their cigarette". After Jim completed his monologue with the audience, he started to lyrically ad-lib as "Back Door Man" flowed it’s way into "The Woman Is The Devil".

"Well she feel like dying,
she’s only twenty one.
Feel like dying,
only twenty one
She been alone and,
she not the only one.

Softer
Sometime I feel like........
Sometime I feel like....the falling rain.
You know I,
just like my falling rain"

"Me and the devil,
walking side by side.
Me and the devil,
walking side by side.
Devil I’m gonna take you on alone
on an evil ride.

You know the woman is a devil,
that’s what I’ve been told.
Woman is the devil,
so I’ve been told.
She’ll take all your money,
then steal your gold."

"Yeah, I’m getting softer...."

"Play it Robbie ! "

Robbie ad-libbed some blues riffs on his guitar. Jim returned to his singing;

"We got a long time
We got a long time to go,
we’re just getting started baby,
we got a real long time to go."

During "Five To One", Morrison played with his words as he sang;

"Get together, GET TO HER, one more time."

"Hey listen, I think it’s about time for an introduction and I never did this before. My name is Jim .. over here this is Ray, that’s Robbie.....and last but not least, John....and we’re just trying to tell you, we got one message and that is...."

"We got to get ourselves together..."

Morrison finished off singing "Five To One" in a gospel-blues fashion. "Hey listen! Thank you very much. Now listen, aah...you know forget this is aah the Square Garden, right ?"

"Yeah" replied the crowd.

"Forget, ...forget we’re in New York City."

"Yeah" the audience reasserted.

"We’re just a little blues band that started out on a place called the ‘Sunset Strip’ Los .. Los Angeles. It’s not in the United States it’s just off the coast of America if you know where that is...but we used to play in these little clubs and people would aaahh .. just come right up and say hello, and tell us what they’d wanted to hear. Now what do you wanna hear ?";Jim asked his audience.

Jim’s question may as well have been a rhetorical one, as the reaction he received from the audience was almost chaotic. The crowd yelled out for their favourite requests as Morrison mischievously laughed. Jim couldn’t make heads or tails of what songs the audience were requesting.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute...now wait a minute" Jim tried to control the audience while Densmore rolled off a few drum beats from his drum kit.

"Hey listen, I got a, I got a little poem to tell ya, right ?"

"I hope you won’t .. won’t misinterpret this incorrectly. It goes like this. It’s very short.....

"Adolph Hitler is still alive!
I slept with her last night.
Come out from behind that false moustache Adolph,
I know you’re in there !"

"He favours life,
you side with death.
I straddle the fence,
AND MY BALLS HURT !"

The audience laughed hysterically but before they could try and contain themselves, Ray started to play the first few opening notes to "When The Music’s Over". During the non-singing interlude of "When The Music’s Over", Morrison would usually have the freedom to lyrically improvise and he chose to do so on this particular occasion.
"I won’ tell you what it is baby,
but it’s,
cold in there.
I won’t show you the label on it,
but it’s real cold."

"Cancel my subscription to the resurrection"

By the time Jim got up to the line "We Want the world and we want it NOW !", the audience had already finished singing the line.

"Hey don’t give the plot away!" Jim said jokingly. Members of the audience were yelling out to Morrison.

"Hey can’t we play ? Has everybody had a chance to say what they’d want to say ?"; Jim asked his audience, sounding a little irritated.

"Hey listen, hey listen. You know this whole performance is being telecasted live for national T.V, right ? So if you have anything to say, you better say it now." Laughter and cheering rang out from the audience.

"What’s that ? ....... Who said that ?" Jim asked.

"We want the world and we want it...................... NOW !"

The Doors closed off the concert with "When The Music’s Over" but there was no encore to follow.

The group pulled in a maximum crowd capacity of 20,000 whilst grossing a total of $105,00 just through one show as opposed to a series of smaller concerts, but in turn the group’s sound and visibility were compromised.

The Doors equipment manager, Vince Treanor had custom built a P.A. system for this concert but since the arena was primarily designed for sporting events, Vince couldn’t successfully achieve "that" sound he desired to accomplish. The sound system at Madison Square Garden was described by Anne Fisher of The Village Voice as being "abominable". It was very hard for the audience to hear Jim’s lyrics due to the poor sound quality of the sound system. Mike Jahn of The New York Times blamed the Garden’s poor acoustics on the microphone system, which he described it as sounding as though "the music was being played through a broken transistor radio."

As well as the acoustics problems that the ‘Garden’ presented, it was also very hard for the audience to see the group as they were seated far away from the stage. Generally, a Doors concerts worked at best with an audience that was physically close to the group, maximising the level of intimacy that The Doors and their audience would share amongst themselves.

However, despite all the technical set backs and the media’s recent reviews, the audience loved Jim. No doubt the kids had a great time at the concert and enjoyed themselves. The group had reach such a high status amongst it’s fans by 1969 and that all Morrison had to do was stand there looking defiant under a shower of crimson light and the audience would go berserk.