The Doors: The Soundstage Performances (DVD), Eagle Rock Ent, Music & Performance

Soundstage Performances contains three fine Doors clips filmed on soundstages for television broadcast, all of them presenting footage that wasn't too widely circulated prior to this 2002 release. The first and briefest performance shows them doing "The End" in Toronto in 1967, the second has them playing half a dozen songs in Copenhagen in 1968, and the third has five songs (plus a band interview) from their 1969 appearance on public television in New York. While the Doors' live work was erratic, due primarily to the mercurial condition of lead singer Jim Morrison, he's in good shape on all three of these broadcasts, and the band plays with focus, energy, and (where appropriate) spontaneity. Highlights from the 1968 Copenhagen clip include a brief snatch of "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)," which wouldn't show up on their studio releases until 1971's L.A. Woman, and "The Unknown Soldier," where the group had to be pretty creative to mimic the sound effects of the shooting on the record. The 1969 appearance is valuable for the inclusion of several songs from The Soft Parade that weren't often performed live, among them "Wishful Sinful," "Tell All the People," and "The Soft Parade"; apparently this was the only time they did "The Soft Parade" live anywhere. Also cool in the 1969 clip is a version of "Build Me a Woman" with a considerably different, and superior, shuffle arrangement than the one that appeared on Absolutely Live, with the added bonus of Morrison singing the couplet, "Sunday trucker motherf*cker," at the beginning of the tune, though he slurs the final word. The bandmembers comment briefly but intelligently on their work in the 1969 interview segment. The sound and image quality is excellent on the Toronto and Copenhagen clips, but unfortunately a little ragged on the 1969 performance, though still highly watchable. Adding considerable value to the vintage footage are fairly extensive interviews with Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, and Robbie Krieger done specifically for this project, in which they comment extensively on both the performances and all of the songs performed. As minor complaints, the interview portion of the 1969 segment doesn't seem complete; some quotes attributed to Morrison in the Doors biography Break on Through are not heard. Also, the roundtable critical discussion of the Doors (including DJ Rosko and critics Richard Goldstein, Al Aronowitz, and Patricia Kennealy, the last of whom became one of Morrison's lovers and wrote a book about their affair) shown in the original program is not included, and that would have been a hoot to view. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi