Dum Pendebat Filius

I’m pretty fond of The Doors, although I’m nowhere near the kind of Doors fan I was when I was in my early twenties. While I was in Reno last month, I saw a billboard on the highway announcing that “The Doors of the 21st Century” were going to be playing at one of the casinos. It turns out they played here in DC on Tuesday night. There was a review in the Post that I found pretty amusing.

It seems “The Doors of the 21st Century” consists of original Doors Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek, plus former Cult frontman Ian Astbury. The review didn’t mention who else is involved in the project; I (frankly) can’t be bothered to check Google and find out. The third living Door, drummer John Densmore, seems to have had a big-league falling out with the other two:

Keyboardist Manzarek and guitarist Krieger, joined by former Cult vocalist Ian Astbury, are touring as the Doors of the 21st Century, or D21C. That moniker was the result of litigation from the estate of original frontman Jim Morrison, who died in 1971, and drummer John Densmore, who wanted no part of a reunion and was against the use of his old band’s name and logo. (A judge even ruled that Morrison’s estate and Densmore are entitled to share D21C’s profits, despite their lack of participation and support.) Manzarek, who looks fabulous for a 66-year-old rocker, slandered Densmore again and again from the stage, and urged fans to surf to a Doors Web site to e-mail character and sexual slurs to his former mate.

Sad, readers. Ray Manzarek urging an audience in a DC nightclub to send hate mail to John Densmore. What is the world coming to?

The Doors were one of the 1960s’ spaciest major pop acts. But over time spacy ferments into doofy. Astbury, who does a spot-on impersonation of actor Val Kilmer (the movie Morrison), appeared to be channeling the late frontman while breaking into very Doorsy rambling non sequitur binges. During “Wild Child,” Manzarek, who has been spewing nonsensical verbiage into microphones since Astbury was in diapers, countered with “We’re drowning with a hamburger!”

I guess you just had to be there.