Tonight I decide to stay home and watch the documentary Muscle Shoals about many great singers appearing in a small Alabama town to record music. Down in the land of high humidity and slow-talking, Aretha Franklin enlivens everyone with pure and powerful vocals like those of Wilson Pickett and the Rolling Stones and others in an all-star cast, and as they finish I look at a digital clock showing nine-fifty-five and say to my wife, \u201cWe gotta get out more. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI\u2019m never a stylish dresser but she usually is and surprises me by simply putting on a jacket over an old shirt that meshes with her gray sweat pants and tennis shoes, and I drive fast to a nightclub I haven\u2019t visited, find a parking space not too far from the door, and hustle to the ticket table out front where I ask a man featuring linebacker biceps, \u201cHas Wild Child played yet?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey start in about five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou still have any tickets?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOh, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWe pay forty bucks for two and enter a darkened club with few tables on the main floor downstairs and dining tables upstairs on the left side overlooking the stage at the far end of the building. I estimate three hundred people are present, a majority waiting in front of the stage, and half are in their twenties and thirties, a quarter appear to be in early middle-age, and only the final quarter, my contemporaries, are old enough to have been fans when Mr. Mojo Risin\u2019 last performed. We join the group, standing behind a dozen deep in front of the stage.<\/p>\n
\tI\u2019ve never seen a tribute band perform live and worry I\u2019ll miss those not here but am encouraged frontman Dave Brock toured three years with Doors guitarist Robby Krieger and organist Ray Manzarek, rock and roll hall of famers who, unlike surly drummer John Densmore, wanted to go out and play. Densmore even insisted his bandmates couldn\u2019t call themselves The Doors since the heart of the band stopped that night in Paris. Litigious punches were exchanged, and the boys had to tour as Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek of The Doors. All three surviving Doors \u2013 Manzarek died a few years later \u2013 publicly praised Dave Brock\u2019s interpretations of Morrison.<\/p>\n
\tAs Wild Child eases onto the stage, I note Brock looks similar to what Morrison would have in middle age if he\u2019d lived temperately. Like his idol often did, Brock\u2019s wearing a black T-shirt and white-shell necklace, and holds the microphone in his right hand and covers that hand with his left, placing his lips near the mike, caressing it, controlling it, assaulting it with strong smooth vocals enhanced by tight accompaniment on guitar, organ, and drums. They start the concert with the legendary ass-kicker \u201cRoadhouse Blues,\u201d and I know Brock isn\u2019t Jim and these guys aren\u2019t The Doors but close enough to evoke the hot sixties during the driving tempo of \u201cBreak on Through\u201d and sensual \u201cTouch Me\u201d and funky \u201cSoul Kitchen\u201d and lyrical \u201cLove Me Two Times\u201d and melodic \u201cCrystal Ship\u201d and sleek \u201cLove Her Madly\u201d and soothing yet sad \u201cRiders on the Storm\u201d and more. The young people know the lyrics better than I, but I remember titles of all songs and write them on a pad, and without waiting I write \u201cLight My Fire.\u201d You damn well know they\u2019re going to play that one. And they do. They play it well, the haunting organ, the rich vocals, come on, baby, don\u2019t tell us goodbye. Get back out here. Just one more. They know what we need. \u201cL.A. Woman.\u201d And that\u2019s what they perform, as strong and moving as the classic before it.<\/p>\n
\tThe band, which hasn\u2019t talked to each other or the audience, leaves the stage at the rear, and I shout, \u201cDave, Dave Brock. Can I talk to you a second, please? It\u2019s for my website.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe can\u2019t hear me. I assume that\u2019s why he doesn\u2019t turn around.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhatdya want to talk to that guy for?\u201d asks an old man.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cTo learn about the band.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe Doors?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNo, I already know about them. Wild Child.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou need to learn more about The Doors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOkay,\u201d I say, \u201cwhat do you want to tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019ve been listening to Chopin every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAt the symphony?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWay better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmid carved stones and nights very still and quiet,\u201d he says, and turns away. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cJust a minute.\u201d I reach for his right shoulder but it isn\u2019t there. I reach for the other. It\u2019s gone, too. \u201cSir, hold on, please.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\u201cWho\u2019re you talking to?\u201d asks my wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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