Headline: The Night The Doors Opened: How Dave Diamond Discovered a Legend at The London Fog
In the shadowy glow of Sunset Boulevard’s neon-soaked nightlife in the mid-1960s, an unassuming club named The London Fog sat quietly beside the more famous Whisky a Go Go. It was here, in this cramped, smoky dive, that fate—and good music intuition—led DJ Dave Diamond to one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
Diamond, a DJ at KBLA in Burbank, wasn’t searching for a revolution that night. He was on a date. “I was dating a girl at the time who dragged me in there one night,” he recalled. The club was barely more than a hole in the wall, the stage “tiny, grotesquely elevated.” Diamond admits he was skeptical: “I thought, ‘Jesus, this is going to be awful.’”
But the band on stage—an unknown group called The Doors—were about to light a spark that would ignite the world.
Then came the moment that changed everything. The band launched into a song called “Light My Fire.” “I went back the next night to see if what I heard was real,” Diamond remembered. “And they included Light My Fire again in their set.”
Recognizing raw genius, Diamond didn’t wait. At the break, he approached the band, introduced himself, and made an offer that would mark a pivotal point in their rise. “I told them I was doing a radio show at KBLA in Burbank and could I play some of their tapes; did they have any records, etc.”
That night, The Doors were no longer just another unknown act grinding it out on the Sunset Strip. They had found a champion—someone with a microphone and a platform, who believed in their sound.
Diamond’s early support helped propel The Doors into the ears of a wider audience. His airplay of their tapes before they were even signed was a crucial step toward their eventual record deal and breakout success.
It’s a reminder that the biggest moments in music history often come from the smallest, most spontaneous decisions—a girl dragging her boyfriend into a club, a young DJ trusting his gut, and a song that burned itself into the soul of a generation.
From The London Fog to legends—The Doors opened, and the world walked through.
