In spite of the "roughness," you really hear The Doors. "Must have" for the dedicated fan. Great that these are being made available. Looking for more. A little pricey, but worth it for the dedicated fan. Shipping and handling very fair. A+

Another Bright Midnight Records release, the label responsible for (finally) putting out some of the Doors shows recorded for the Absolutely Live tour, and then some. This is the second Aquarius '69 show.

The sound quality is just as good as the other Bright Midnight releases, recorded with the same set-up, and then remastered years later by Doors engineer Bruce Botnick. So if you only get one Aquarius show, check out the setlist and order and see what you prefer--both nights are similar. Both shows feature a complete Celebration of the Lizard, as well as the excellent Mystery Train/Crossroads jam. This show has Touch Me and Gloria, while the first show has Who Do You Love. The completist will just buy both sets, others may want to ponder. Most importantly, aside from the excellent sound, is thast the shows are uncut and complete. They even separate the in-between chatter and crowd noise into separate tracks like 'The Crowd Humbly Requests'. I'm not aware of any overdubs on this album, either.

Recorded as part of the material that would be sewed into the Absolutely Live album, this is a complete source where as AB was a collection from many shows. Many tracks were, in fact, cut-ups of various takes of the same song from different shows. Guess the band is finally content to let people see them warts and all. AB and In Concert are excellent live albums, but purists wished for complete and uncut concerts tapes, and Bright Midnight is delivering all of the stops, starts, miscues, mistakes, drunken Jim, and chatter in between some amazing versions.

Highly recommended to Doors fans, and if you're really obsessed you'll want to pick up all of the Bright Midnight releases. They seem to be trickling them out, unlike The Grateful Dead or Pearl Jam who bombarded fans with 'official bootlegs' over the years. Thankfully, in addition to the band, Botnick is involved with all releases for continuity and completeness over the decades.

Contrary to many reports already Documented this Was not the First Concert Performed since Miami {Chicago, June 14th & Minneapolis, June 15th} Had come and gone without incident.

The Aquarius Theater Shows (2 Performed on July 21st & 1 Show from the 22nd of July) are regarded as The Door's definate "Comeback" performances. 1969 was a Year of Revolution in the US Culture, and to some on the Right, The Doors (Like John Lennon) were considered "Public Enemy Number One". It was Us against Them, in all the Best & Worst Ways that can be imagined.

These Shows were recorded on Multi-Track Tapes for a Live Album. There were no riots or arrests over the course of these Shows. Just very Good Playing by The Band and Some of Jim's Finest recorded Vocals. And because of that many have said that Jim was on a "Tight-Leash" here and played a Good Boy for these Shows. Well, according to Ray Manzarek, that did NOT happen, and Ray went on to say that if Someone had told Jim to watch what he said and did on the Aquarius Stage, it would have triggered him behave badly. We will never know Jim's take on this Story, BUT, he DID sing a bunch during these Shows and now we have 4 CD's as proof.

These two CD's are The Doors performining as a Band, with the Music coming first, and that for the listener is a very Good Thing. "Universal Mind" features Jim really singing well. A great "Gloria" is over 10 Minutes in length, and it's almost like 1966 all over again, this is a Band of Four Men and this is well give you a glimse into what the fuss was all about. When Jim takes a Left turn into Improv, Robby, John and Ray are right there with him {The Music plays The Band}.

There are a few Blues Numbers in the Set: "Little Red Rooster","Close To You" and "You Make Me Real" that on some Nights the Band just Cranks out without much life, but on these CD's they really shine. "Peace Frog" is a real treat, and not easy to find as a live version. "The Lizard" was not a big Favorite of mine when I first heard it on the Double Live LP, back in 1970, but it has grown on me as now I really think it's Cool.

Because, it's 2007 and we now are lucky enough to have Many Doors Concerts released on CD there is a lot to chose from. This Show will not be the Favorite for many, because it wasn't Front-Page news in all the Newspapers the next morning. Nobody died, nobody rioted, nobody got arrested. But at The Aquarius Theater, The Doors, PLAYED! There is 138 Minutes of their best Music on these Two CD's, it's not sedate or boring, but it sure is GREAT!
FOUR STARS !!!

OK, I'm starting out this review because I can't stand to read all of the Doors apologists out there who can't admit when a Doors show was substandard. Now you might have a legitimate gripe with the recent release of the doors live at Boston (where Jim is drunk as a skunk and sings atrociously) but here at Aquarius, while he doesn't sing badly, he's not terribly inspired nor is the band. They make some noticeable mistakes which is a reason why only a couple of tracks were used to be included on the Absolutely Live album. Jim is NOT at the top of his game. The only exception is the band's rendition of Celebration of the Lizard from the first show which is excellent. But the late show just isn't that interesting. Yeah, an embryonic version of Peace Frog sounds entertaining at first but the finished version is much better and this instrumental is lame. With the exception of COTL there is no improvisational poetry from Jim and the band doesn't jam on any of the tunes. They play very carefully (almost too carefully) and they are a bit nervous because they are being professionally recorded. What makes this a good release is the excellent sound coming from the soundboard. But it's not the Doors at their best. By '69 we have a bearded Jim who's already become disenchanted with the rock music scene and frankly has begun is downward spiral into the abyss. The Doors peaked with their January '69 performance at Madison Square Garden in New York. Then Miami in March 1 hit and the band did a slow downward trend from which it never really recovered, although Roadhouse Blues and LA Woman has some great Doors songs on them. But Aquarius is not what it should have been. Really, if you want great Doors music you have to go to 1967 and 1968 when the Doors were at their peak of greatness. Jim was at the top of his game before his downfall. The Aquarius gigs are OK but that's it. Anyone who tells you differently is only wishing the gigs could have been more. When Paul Rothchild and the band heard their Aquarius performance on tape they realized it wasn't a great performance which is why the band recorded more shows to eventually get a better performance down on tape. Absolutely Live was the end result which is made up of a number of different cuts from different concerts. Aquarius is the show that "shoulda,woulda, coulda"

As usual with Doors' records, the performance is superb, the music excellent, the emotion is high. BUT there is something wrong with the caption on the cover, which can be seen when you enlarge the 2nd picture in the images, which says that this is the 'FIRST" performance, when all the other titles label this as the "SECOND".