A new box set from the Doors titled “Live at the Matrix 1967: The Original Masters” will arrive on September. 8th, showcasing the group’s live prowess as they were on the cusp of stardom. The Doors were a few months away from stardom in March 1967 when they played five sparsely attended shows at a small club in San Francisco called The Matrix.
The collection will be available on a three-CD and five-LP configurations, limited to 21,000 and 14,000 copies, respectively. Bootlegs of The Matrix shows have circulated among fans for years and were popular despite the poor audio quality of most copies. The sound began improving in 1997 when the first two songs from The Matrix shows were officially released on The Doors: Box Set. Even more performances followed in 2008 on “Live at the Matrix 1967” regrettably, it was discovered soon after that all the recordings were sourced from third-generation tapes, not the originals.
“Live at the Matrix 1967” is culled from five shows that the Doors played in March of that year at the Matrix, a San Francisco pizza parlor-turned-nightclub co-owned by Peter Abram and Jefferson Airplane founder Marty Balin. The performances have circulated as bootlegs for years, and the songs on the upcoming box set have been sourced entirely from Abram’s original master recordings and remastered by the Doors’ longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick.
The vinyl version of Live at the Matrix 1967 contains all 37 songs performed across the five shows. A March 7th rendition of the jazz instrumental “Bag’s Groove” is exclusive to the vinyl set and comes on a 7″ single — one of two never-before-heard recordings along with “All Blues.”
The “Live at the Matrix 1967” performances took place just two months after the Doors released their eponymous debut album and six weeks before the single release of “Light My Fire,” which catapulted to the top of the charts in the summer of 1967. “We were on the lip of great success, and we didn’t know it,” drummer John Densmore said of the landmark recordings.
The Doors ‘Live at the Matrix 1967’ Box Set Arriving in September
The Fat Angel Sings 