Here's a rough draft of my concert review from last night.

Set the Night on Fire: A Tribute to the Doors

Sat., Nov. 10, Skipper’s Smokehouse

WMNF DJ Flee has been throwing annual, multi-band homages to rock’s royals for several years now. Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the not-as-wildly-popular-but-equally-worthy Elvis Costello have all been honored. Saturday marked the first time I didn't particularly care for the honoree: The Doors.

I don’t hate ‘em as much as others, but the idea of Jim Morrison as, dare I say the word, a poet, rankles me. In fact, “The End” might be the worst song in the classic rock canon. I said as much to some musicians who were waiting to perform Saturday and seriously irked one of them. Oh well.

Set the Night on Fire: A Tribute to the Doors, which took place at Skipper’s Smokehouse in North Tampa, ran seven hours. I was there for six and the start of the music. Eighteen local bands each turned in 12-minute sets (or something close to that). The talent levels varied greatly.

Skull and Bones kicked things off. They’re a solid band that turned in a sturdy performance but it sounded as if they were aping rather than honoring The Doors. Problem is, their singer has a deep, dramatic voice that sounds even more Morrison-y than Ian Astbury’s.

I retreated to the backstage area and listened – waiting for an act to make me want to come to the front of the stage and cheer. This finally happened around 8:30 p.m. and the timing couldn’t have been better. A band called Large Mammal, which was led by a burly howler who wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves hacked off, had just offered unimaginative run-throughs of Doors hits during a set that was plagued by a painfully long technical difficulty break.

Next, out came the duo Acho Brother: singer/guitarist Hector Mayoral and drummer Zak Byrd. Up to this point, no one had done anything truly innovative or unpredictable. Mayoral changed all that. A singer in possession of a supple, demonstrative voice that sounds incapable of a flat note, he sang the words to “The Spy” but completely eschewed The Doors’ sophomoric chord changes for white heat jazz licks that left several other musicians and I picking our jaws up off the floor. Mayoral’s second and final number, “Wishful Sinful,” dazzled with equal fervor.

It pleased me to witness the same throngs of bikers, hippies, yuppies, college students and teens (the crowd ran the gamut) that cheered wildly for the standard Doors interpretations also give it up for Acho Brother.

“Yeah, I kept the lyrics the same,” Mayoral said backstage. “But had to rewrite the music.”

Not too long after the Acho set I again found myself in the pit, screaming my approval during a performance by Hunch, a new quartet featuring Vodkanauts Mark Warren (guitar/vocals) and Ryan Arsenault (keyboards). The four-piece executed a masterfully exuberant instrumental medley of “Light My Fire,” “L.A. Woman,” “Love Her Madly” and “Touch Me” that also managed to quote Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and one of jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s numbers from A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

As for the best none-Doors number of the evening, that award goes to Auditorium. Lead singer Joran Slane unleashed a throat-grabbing reading of “Desperado” that sounded every bit as sinister and depraved as the Alice Cooper group original from their 1971 classic Killer. Auditorium segued straight into a faithful, fiery rendition of “Five to One” (a Doors tune I do have s soft-spot for). Mid-song, Slane reached down and hoisted a tall twentysomething man with a straggly beard onto the stage. But Skipper’s security wasn’t having it. They yanked the dude off, but not without him putting up a fight. Definitely a moment Morrison would have applauded.

For my money, the Mojo Gurus are the best straight-up, good times, rock ’n’ roll band in Tampa Bay. Formerly the lead singer of the 1980s major label metal act Roxx Gang, Kevin Steele knows how to sell an over-the-top Morrison lyric better than most. He and his three band mates closed the night with gloriously glammy covers of “Hello, I love You,” “Love Me Two Times,” “People Are Strange” and the finale: “Break on Through,” which erupted with a cluster bomb solo by guitarist Doc Lovett.

Like the hundreds of others in attendance, I left Skipper’s with a big ol’ grin on my face — and eagerly await seeing what Flee will concoct for next year’s tribute show.

This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2007.