New Member 2 cents

[Lewiston Dave]

So most of Vince's entries are from many years ago. If my calculations are right, he would be around 83 years old now? Good grief. How can this be? The world is such a different place than it was when The Doors with Jim were active. There was no real blueprint for how to operate a touring rock band; to some extent it was trial and error. It's so amazing how all of the equipment had to fit in a GM step truck; I assume that was similar to most UPS/Fed Ex trucks we see around these days. Vince did a hell of a job & The Doors were lucky to have had him as road manager. I love his story about how he became involved with them & build their portable sound system. Acoustic must not have made many of the Monolith PA systems as I haven't been able to locate any by prowling around the internet, not even a photo. Imagine a rock concert for 10,000 people where the main "soundboard" is a 6 input Shure mixer that sits on the back of the drum riser?! Amazing. Vince uses words like "loyalty" to describe why he stayed with the band through thick and thin. I'm not sure anyone even knows the meaning of that word anymore. How sad. What a solid guy - interesting stories and what a reasonable person. I think I have to agree with him that the first 3 albums were the best. There's a difference between music that is good, very good or even excellent ... and magical. It never really dawned on me what a turning point Miami was. How can a Doors fan not wonder how things would have been different if Miami hadn't happened? But The Soft Parade album was also a turning point.
Well, I don't know if anyone will find this ... just my 2 cents as I read through historical entries in the Forum.

[eva]

YES, very nice ....

[Lewiston Dave]

I see where Vince T. answered one of my quandaries about how I couldn't find photos of the Acoustic PA columns they used in '69-'70. The reason I could not find them was because he built them himself (the speaker columns) ... and they were powered by Acoustic amplifiers. Same goes for the bass speaker columns on each side of John ('70s photos show 3-15" speakers in each of these). Vince picked right, using Altec Lansings in everything. I am still interested in knowing exactly what kind of lighting they were able to haul around with them. It looks fairly minimal (floor boxes at the front of the stage), though I am sure that typically, they also had the benefit of house floodlights. When people listen to concert recordings of the Doors, I think they should consider that Jim did not have monitor speakers as most bands became accustomed to having, from '71 on - the monitors that were at the front of the stage pointed up at an angle to the singers. That being said, Vince did provide the monitors on both sides of John on top of the bass stacks, behind Jim, - which did undoubtedly help considerably - but none-the-less, I have always felt that Jim (and all bands from the pre-70s era) were a bit hampered by less than optimal vocal monitors. Just sayin' - !