Sunday, August 26, Ray Manzarek came to, of all places, Tooele, Utah. Pronounced Tu-ell-a. Go figure. The promoters were expecting upwards of 20,000 people but it appeared 19,500 decided to stay home. Sparse and dusty were the keywords. I suppose they figured the blown-back hippies and undesirables wouldn't cause any problems in this desolate God forsaken place.

    The stage was guarded by a group of bikers for the charity, Bikers Against Child Abuse. A good cause but it looked like about the rowdiest this crowd was going to get was possibly a spilled beer. There were enough speakers and cops to take care of a football game and here we had a slew of bands all to our mangy selves. It didn't stop Ray who made it albeit out of rotation according to the schedule.

    The crowd moaned when Quicksilver Messenger Service was announced in Ray's supposed place and my heart dropped. There were a couple of other fans with Doors shirts and I was wondering if they were feeling as sick (and pissed off) as I was at that moment. When the MC announced a special guest had arrived after QMS finished their set, and a keyboard was placed prominently up front, a group of people formed at the base of the stage including myself. Ray had indeed made it.

    After greeting the sparse crowd, he ran through familiar Doors numbers such as Break On Through, Moonlight Drive, Riders on the Storm, and Light My Fire as though 20,000 people had made it. Ray told the stories behind each song before playing them. The heat was getting so intense that he commented he could hardly touch the keyboard without burning his hands so we must REALLY be crazy. I had the necessary drunk next to me who yelled, "We're burning for you, Ray!" That got a chuckle from everyone including Ray. Ray then decided to give the crowd a lesson on meditation and the advantages of using psychedelics to break through and discover oneself. He then commented how our (Utah)"Elders should take some psychedelics and maybe THEY would then discover the truth." That got a huge laugh from the crowd including "surprisingly" the policemen on horseback off to the side of the stage. However, it was painfully obvious they were not watching the crowd for crowd control and Ray took every opportunity to expand on the benefits of pot and LSD at their expense.

    To conclude his spot Ray went into The End. When he got to the oedipal section he practically let the crowd do the phrasing. He then went into the Mother...I want to...and censored himself with the word "'love' you, baby" instead of what we were all expecting. However, the crowd filled in the necessary word loudly. Not to be predictable...when the climax of the song got going...Ray very clearly and loudly starting yelling it out over and over and over just as Jim had done on the censored version. More clearly, in fact. After all, this wasn't a Lovin' Spoonful song (who also played Rockstock) this was a Doors song damnit! For a guy playing just a keyboard with no band behind him, the crowd was pleased. It wasn't The Doors, but nonetheless, it was a legend.