WEEKEND REVIEWS : Pop : Krieger Cashes in at Wadsworth

So who can blame Doors guitarist Robby Krieger for wanting to cash in on a little notoriety--isn’t that, after all, in the earliest tradition of the Doors? And doesn’t he have as much right as anyone? Oliver Stone’s movie may have been about Jim Morrison, but Krieger’s the guy who wrote “Light My Fire.”

The real question posed by his concert at the Wadsworth Theater on Saturday, however, was whether Krieger would embrace Doors nostalgia at the cost of his own music.

The short answer is that he did. The longer, more enigmatic response is that in some respects that wasn’t such a bad idea, since the duplicated music was pretty good. Guitarist Wah Wah Watson and drummer Dale Alexander’s relentless flow of rhythm brought pieces like “You’re Lost, Little Girl” and “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” to life with an energy and vigor largely absent from the original versions.

But the Doors with Jim Morrison were far more focused on theater, adolescent rebellion and intellectual kitsch than music. The fact that 20-plus years later Krieger has become an improved guitarist who can generate superior rhythm tracks for aging songs didn’t alter the fact that the missing element was the Lizard King’s self-obsessed vocal presentations.

Bassist Berry Oakley Jr. (son of the Allman Brothers’ late bassist) and Waylon Krieger (Robby’s son) handled most of the singing, sometimes in unison, with a youthful innocence that completely missed the point. Krieger’s attempts at vocals were mercifully few, marred by a petulant, why-am-I-doing-this attitude.

The evening’s apotheosis, perhaps appropriately, came when Morrison impressionist David Brock pranced on stage for a rehashed (and overcooked) rendering of “Light My Fire.”