The Doors: R-Evolution Blu-ray Review
TV appearances are strange.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, January 20, 2014
Despite their ongoing significance in the annals of rock music, The Doors actually had a fairly short lived career at the top
of the U.S. hit charts. If one only counts the Jim Morrison albums and singles (something diehard Doors fans are
probably loathe to do), the band's
oeuvre stretches only from January 1967, when
The Doors was
released, to April 1971, when
L.A. Woman came out. And while The Doors had enjoyed two Number 1 singles
("Light My Fire" in 1967 and "Hello, I Love You" in 1968), if one looks objectively at chart data from 1969 through 1971,
aside from a couple of bright spots ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm"), it appeared at least that some of the
bloom was off the rose, and/or the psilocybin. But of course Jim Morrison's untimely death on July 3, 1971 changed
everything. While The Doors attempted to regroup and had at least a modicum of success in their post-Morrison
formulation, for most in the casual listening public, The Doors means "the
Jim Morrison Doors", and that era
obviously had been closed rather conclusively with the frontman's demise. On the other hand, that very death suddenly
made a host of Doors "rarities" (live performances, bootlegs, television appearances) all the more meaningful, and the
cult of the band was no doubt "helped" (if that's the right word, considering the circumstances) by the passing of
Morrison. Now, over 40 years after the band's heyday, the interest in The Doors has really not abated much, and in
some ways the musings of the so-called Lizard King seem to speak all the more clearly to a class of disaffected youth
who might otherwise look on The Doors as a nostalgia act or at best an "oldies" enterprise. Doors fans both young and
old should be excited by this new compendium of various video archives, including a bunch of nascent music videos that
the band themselves had a hand in producing.
Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman mentions The Doors' relatively short shelf life (in their most prominent period,
anyway) in the documentary appending this Blu-ray release (snippets of which are also presented as PiP commentary
during selected videos), while also mentioning that there's a relative paucity of filmed material of the band in their
heyday. He mentions that even a band as iconic as The Beatles tended to have more still photographs than moving
pictures taken of them, and that's certainly the case with The Doors as well. Holzman states that he thinks he knows
where every last second of Doors film is, and that just about all of it has been used in one way, shape or form over the
years. And yet—here's this rather astounding collection of footage, everything from some of the first attempts at music
video (one of the surviving Doors mentions one of them may even
be the first music video) to what has proven
to be one of the saving graces of archiving musical performances (often lip synched, it should be added) from that era,
the American variety television series (along with an exceptionally outré German show).
The Doors were at the forefront of what would come to be known as the music video, and a couple of their early efforts
are on hand here,
including
Wild Child which is a supposed candid (if perhaps just
slightly rehearsed) look at an "actual
recording session". The
archival footage here shows the boys coming to terms with their own fame, as they themselves talk about in the
picture-in-picture
commentary and the accompanying featurette. Early appearances like
Shebang! (with host Casey Kasem!) or
the totally bizarre
Murray
the K
appearance show halting, insecure and almost embarrassed looking band members. By the time they've "graduated" to
the big leagues on
such outings as
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, there's no such self consciousness. The sad thing about
many of these
supposed "live" performances is that they of course featured the band lip (and finger) synching to prerecorded playback.
The worst example
here is the aforementioned
Murray the K episode, where the guys don't even have instruments, for crying out
loud—they all just kind
of sit there while Jim sings "People Are Strange". But keep your eyes peeled throughout many of the early
performances, and you'll see
"little" telltale signs like Robby Krieger's guitar not being plugged in. (As bad as these examples are, they reminded me
of another example which makes these Doors appearances pale in comparison. A Brazilian
television special I saw once starred keyboardist Sergio Mendes, where Sergio and his band were performing "live"
(yeah, right) on a rooftop in Rio, to a prerecorded
playback of Sergio's rendition of Airto's great tune "Misturada". A couple of problems with this formulation: the actual
recording has Sergio
playing acoustic grand. The special has him on the rooftop in front of a Fender Rhodes. An
unplugged Fender
Rhodes. As the guys
mention in their featurette, video directors are not always the most musically aware people in the crowd.)
While longtime Doors fans may have seen at least
some of this footage previously, having it compiled in this
format is a really fun and entertaining way to revisit the band's glory days (along with a few outings from the eighties
and nineties). Both Jim and Ray had backgrounds in film, and their interest in their filmed (or taped) performances
informs at least the band managed appearances. Making this all the more special is the participation of Ray Manzarek,
who left us far too soon last year.
The disc includes the following:
- 1. Break on Through (To the Other Side) – Music Film – January, 1967
- 2. Break on Through (To the Other Side) – Shebang – March 6, 1967
- 3. The Crystal Ship – American Bandstand – July 22, 1967
- 4. Light My Fire – American Bandstand – July 22, 1967
- 5. Light My Fire – Malibu U – August 25, 1967
- 6. People Are Strange – Murray the K in New York – September 22, 1967
- 7. Moonlight Drive - The Jonathan Winters Show – December 27, 1967
- 8. The Unknown Soldier – Music Film – February, 1968
- 9. Hello, I Love You – Musix für Junge Leute: 4-3-2-1 Hot and Sweet – September 13, 1968
- 10. Touch Me - The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour – December 15, 1968
- 11. Wild Child – Music Film – July, 1969
- 12. Roadhouse Blues – Music Film – February, 1970
- 13. Crawling King Snake – GTK (Get to Know) – December, 1970
- 14. The Changeling – Music Film – April, 1971
- 15. Gloria – Music Film – October, 1983
- 16. People Are Strange – Music Film – 1980s
- 17. Strange Days – Music Film – 1984
- 18. L.A. Woman – Music Film – 1985
- 19. Ghost Song – Music Film – 1995
The Doors: R-Evolution Blu-ray, Video Quality
The Doors R-Evolution is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision (an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment) and
Doors Property LLC with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.34:1 (the accompanying featurette is in 1.78:1). As might be
expected, there are varying levels of quality here, but the "music films" look surprisingly strong despite the age of the
earliest ones, with solid, deep blacks and decent detail (most of these were shot on 16mm). The television appearances
vary the widest in quality. On some of the color outings, the color has faded considerably (
Murray the K probably
looks the worst in this regard), while on others, it's still surprisingly vivid (the German show, which needs to be seen for the
manic dancing if for no other reason). Some of the videotaped performance exhibit video anomalies like ghosting. Overall,
the image is decently if not overwhelmingly sharp and detailed, and aside from some transitory damage (small specks and
the like), there's nothing much to complain about here.
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