Cert:

Cat.no: 780 312 2

Running time: 62 minutes

Recorded: July 5th, 1968

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 11

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)

Languages: English

Subtitles: None

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £17.99

Extras : Scene index

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Director:

Ray Manzarek

Producer:

Rick Schmidlin

The Band:

Jim Morrison (Vocals)
Robby Krieger (Guitar)
John Densmore (Drums)
Ray Manzarek (Keyboards)

The Doors: Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a recording of said concert on July 5th, 1968 (so why the copyright notice of 1961 on the back cover?)

I was largely unaware of the band until my student days from 1990 to 1993 at Keele University and it was particularly around the time of the Oliver Stone's film release in March 1991 that I got into them. I listened to the 'Best Of' album about six times in a row, then saw the film, absolutely loved it despite Stone's additional 'interpretations' and still listen to their music today. At the time of the film's release though, Light My Fire was re-released with the entire keyboard solo cut out. Bad move.

The Doors are one band who I'd love to see live today, although that's a bit difficult since Jim Morrison died of a drug overdose in Paris in July, 1971. Hey, that's nine months before I was born... You don't think his soul... Could I be the Lizard King?? Ahem, back to the plot.

As I said, I'd like to see the band live and this DVD gives you the chance, but I'm sure their set must've lasted longer than 62 minutes. Why do concert videos always cut around half of the original footage out? Surely fans want the whole thing?

The Doors weren't big on singles, but their releases (and re-releases) are as follows :

Aug 67	No.49	Light My Fire
Aug 68	No.15	Hello I Love You
Oct 71	No.50	Riders on the Storm
Oct 71	No.22	Riders on the Storm (re-entry)
Mar 76	No.33	Riders on the Storm (re-issue)
Feb 79	No.71	Hello I Love Uoi (re-issue)
Apr 91	No.64	Break on Through
Jun 91	No. 7	Light My Fire (much-truncated re-issue)
Aug 91	No.68	Riders on the Storm (re-issue)

While I love the music, it has to be said that the picture is pretty terrible. Apart from the obvious NTSC-PAL conversion, it looks so dark and out of focus most of the time and there are artifacts milling about as the encoding tries to make sense of a 32-year-old recording.

It's not really Universal's fault though. In 1968, no-one was saying "Hey, let's make this a great-looking recording because Jim's going to die in three years time, the band will become a national institution and wouldn't a DVD be a good idea?" That said, the picture is what you would tend to expect and is in fullscreen. The average bitrate is a fairly steady 6.91Mb/s.

The sound is perfect though. The music sounds as full of life as, presumably, it did back then, although I'm more used to it on the aforementioned 'Best of' CD. It is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)

Extras :

Chapters :

There are 11 chapters, one for each song. The track listing is as follows and there's no prizes for guessing what the final one is :

1. When the Music's Over

2. Alabama Song

3. Back Door Man

4. 5 To 1

5. Moonlight Drive

6. Horse Latitudes

7. From the Celebration on the Lizard

8. Spanish Caravan

9. Light My Fire (Extended Version)

10. The Unknown Soldier

11. The End

Languages & Subtitles :

English is the language, sung and shouted. No lyrics, which is a shame.

Menu :

Silent and almost static. "Almost", because the band's picture fades into view. Well, there's only three of them there and I'm sure Robby's been replaced with American comic Steven Wright.

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Overall, as is the way with all music DVDs, the only people to buy them will be fans of the band. Most of them will already have the video or the Greatest Hits DVD and if you have both I'd recommend you stick with those, especially since there's no extras on the DVD and the CD contains all the best tracks and complete too, since there's hardly any of Spanish Caravan.

The concert does contain some memorable moments though, such as Morrison's scream in When the Music's Over and of him 'dying' in The Unknown Soldier.

Now, when this review's over, turn out the light...

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	0
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.