THAT DAY

The Doors at the Isle of Wight, 29/30 August 1970

On the night of August 29 to 30, 1970, the DOORS gave a concert on the Isle of Wight, located in the south of England.

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The festival, which also hosts The Who, Taste, Free, Joni Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix, takes place in a particular context for Jim Morrison. Indeed, the singer of the DOORS who is on trial in the United States at the same time for the Miami affair, sees the promoters canceling the programming of the DOORS in several rooms in the country.

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The trip to the Isle of Wight which was originally to serve as the launch for a new European tour to pass through the Olympia in France, will eventually exhaust Morrison. Once there, the group which was not informed that it was necessary to bring back its own lighting equipment will play under a simple spotlight with a red-orange hue.

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Jim meanwhile, will remain static throughout his performance...

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The festival is widely recognized as the biggest music event of its time after Woodstock. Although estimates vary, the Guinness Book estimates that between 600,000 and 700,000 people attended, making it the DOORS concert with the highest attendance.

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Unfortunately the serenity of the Festival was only of very short duration. Indeed, several festival-goers who protested the price of the entrance tickets, then violently attacked the local police and tried to overthrow the barricades surrounding the site.

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The complete DOORS will only give three concerts after this one, in December 1970. The following year will be marked by the premature death of Jim Morrison in Paris.

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Captured by Murray Lerner's cameras, the Isle of Wight concert has been available since 2018 in an edited version, with the soundtrack remixed and particularly retouched using audio effects and other digital corrections...