The band was fashionably late, starting at 08:15, with an announcement by the tour manager of "Ladies and Gentlemen, from Los Angeles California, The Doors—21st Century." Their tour manager, whose name I've forgotten, is a Pittsburgh boy. The pavilion-seat-only crowd of 8,000 roared as they opened with “Roadhouse Blues.”

They played with a five-man setup, Ray Manzarek on keyboards, Robby Krieger on guitar, Ian Astbury (from the Cult) doing lead vocals, a base player and a drummer (subbing for the ailing John Densmore). In the original Doors four-man set, there was no bass player as Ray would play a keyboard bass. The bass player won crowd favor by wearing a Pittsburgh Penguin shirt and Manzarek was booed when he mentioned his team, the Detroit Redwings. It was a good laugh.

Another Pittsburgh connection came to light when Robby Krieger mentioned his dad was from Pittsburgh. If my memory is correct, Krieger's dad served as the business lawyer for the original Doors group in the sixties. Ian Astbury couldn't have been more like Jim Morrison—except when he spoke In his British accent to the crowd. But dress-wise, grooming-wise, singing-wise and stage-presence-wise Ian pretty much nailed it.

That was the one of the best surprises of the night, but there were more to come. The band continued on for two hours playing many of their top hits: “Break on Through,” “When The Music's Over,” “Love Me Two Times,” “Moonlight Drive,” “Wild Child,” “Alabama Song,” “Back Door Man,” “5 to 1,” “Crystal Ship,” “People Are Strange,” “Spanish Caravan,” “Maggie M’Gill”— encore—“Light My Fire”—encore—and “Soul Kitchen.”

At stage front and center, it got a bit hairy during the last two or three songs as bras and drinks started flying and security had to drag a few stage-crashing chicks down. But us 40-year-old guys dug it. After the second encore, the roadies came out and the crowd exited. We hung around the stage awhile and I eventually snagged one of the set sheets The roadies threw out to the crowd as they were breaking down the stage. The songs they scratched for the Pittsburgh concert were “Cops Talk,” “Riders On The Storm,” and “Peace Frog.”

About 15 minutes after the last song we started walking out of the PIT area and just for the heck of it asked one of the security guards if we could get back stage. He said no, but said that the band was meeting people in the 'meet and greet' tent. It didn't take us long to figure our where that was, and we hung around trying to figure out how we were going to get the grey, 'ALL ACCESS' passes that the 12 people in line for the tent had. Security there had told us that there was no way we were getting into the tent without that pass.

A few minutes more passed when their tour manager (Pittsburgh guy) came out of a gated access door and began to usher those with the proper credentials back through a walkway to the tent. It was now 30 minutes after the last song ended, the place was nearly empty, and the three remaining people in my group were standing there like lost orphans when the tour manager asked if we'd like to go back and meet the band. We just about fell over!

As he walked us back he told us to 'behave' and we then entered a large tented room with a lot of plastic tables and chairs. Robby, Ian and Ray were seated at a long wooded table. Talk about your strange people! The 15 people standing around in that tent looked like the people on the front of The Doors’ “Strange Days” album. You know, the one with the midget, juggler, strongman, mime, and so on. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was surreal hanging out with Ray, Robby, Ian, managers, and security.

For 25 years, I'd been waiting for a chance like this to ask these guys one of about a zillion questions I've pondered. And you know what? I couldn't think of any of the important, intellectually meaningful questions I needed answered. Instead we just talked about the show, how the tour was going, missing Woodstock, and a lot of other common, plain things in a very informal, relaxed setting. We enjoyed several laughs. I mentioned to Ian how impressed we were with his performance. And he related that he liked the Pittsburgh show much better than the Cleveland show they did the night before.

We hung around for about 20 minutes, got a few autographs (got my set-sheet signed) and then left. Walking to the parking lot, you'd have thought we’d just won the Powerball for 50 mil! If you are not a Doors fan, you will have probably rolled your eyes twice by now, but if you are one of those who have been elevated by The Doors’ words and music…you can appreciate how we felt walking out of the PG Pavilion.

Wow, what a night!