SOUNDSTAGE PERFORMANCES

Another very good video (taken from a DVD) that I had the luck to see recently being broadcasted by one TV channel in my city called "Canal Once" ("Channel Eleven"), maybe one of the best, if not the best, of the few TV channels dedicated to cultural themes in my city.

This DVD shows very good performances by The Doors which were done for TV broadcasts and mostly played without audiences.The DVD also has commentaries from John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and the late Danny Sugerman (who was manager of the band for a time and also co-wrote the book called "No One Here Gets Out Alive", a biography about Jim Morrison and The Doors), which are very good, telling their memories about these perfomances without cutting the performances.

"The End", taken from a Canadian TV Colour broadcast (1967), is the only one song which was recorded before an audience. It shows the band playing a very good energetic version of this song, a bit different to the studio version, and with the audience showing the fad of Psychedelia in their dances and clothes. Manzarek says in his coimmentary that this performance was done before "Light My Fire" became a hit single.

The next performances were taken from a TV broadcast done in Denmark, in 1968, while the band was on their only European Tour: "Whisky Bar","Back Door Man", "Texas Radio", "Love Me Two Times", "When The Music's Over" and "Unknown Soldier", in Black and White. These are also very good performances from which I remember that "Texas Radio" and "Love Me Two Times" are the same versions of these songs which were previously released in the "Alive She Cried" live album in 1983, and I also saw them on TV in the late eighties.

The next performances are for me the most interesting: "Tell All The People", "Back Door Man", "Wishful Sinful", "Build Me A Woman" and "The Soft Parade", being from a TV broadcast (in Colour) done in New York in 1969. They are the most interesting because some songs are from their "The Soft Parade" album, which was then their newest album, and they couldn`t do a proper tour to promote it following the "Miami Incident". It is good to see the band playing these songs live without the orchestral arrangements which the album has. They sound very different in my opinion. The commentaries done for these performances by Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek are interesting because they say that Jim Morrison was singing in this TV broadcast sober and with a bit of inhibitions due to the Miami Scandal. Morrison in fact looks a bit bored, but he sings very well anyway. This TV broadcast was done by a TV channel which in my opinion had "leftish ideas", so The Doors were happy to take one of the few opportunities they had after the Miami Scandal to play and to promote their new music, because they were banned to play in many cities of the U.S.

This is a very interesting DVD.

The Doors - Soundstrage Performances (2002)

'The Soundstage Performances'. This dvd shows live material from '67, '68 and '69. The material is played intimately in the studio (main footage) and the movie/sound-quality is good. The other material is from stage performances and the quality is mediocre, sometimes bad.

At first I had some problems accepting this tame version of the Doors playing in the studio. The band doens't just play it's songs, they re-arranged both the instrumental and the vocals parts. Back Door Man is therefore totally different than on the album. The sound of the band is OK, though of the keyboards sound less interesting. The performance of the band is good.

This the kind of dvd that came after most people first go a dvd-player. It's a low-budget project with raw material and no re-mastering of both film and sound material. Some interview with current members are ok, but not very interesting and the questions aren't important.

Conclusion. This is nice document for Doors fans. It does show some good material, they play some good songs, but it never amazes me. I'm not that fond of the dvd-concept and I will give this two stars. This is for fans of the Doors. The dvd isn't that expensive, so it might be interesting for collectors as well. For others I would recommend to listen to the first three studio albums first.