Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
Live at the Hollywood BowlDistributed by
- 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
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 Bowlis a recording of said concert on July 5th, 1968 (so why the copyright notice of 1961 onthe back cover?)
I was largely unaware of the band until my student days from 1990 to 1993 at KeeleUniversity and it was particularly around the time of the Oliver Stone‘s filmrelease in March 1991 that I got into them. I listened to the ‘Best Of’ album aboutsix 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’srelease though, Light My Fire was re-released with the entire keyboard solo cutout. Bad move.
The Doors are one band who I’d love to see live today, although that’s a bitdifficult 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 bethe 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’msure their set must’ve lasted longer than 62 minutes. Why do concert videos alwayscut 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 :
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 focusmost of the time and there are artifacts milling about as the encoding tries tomake sense of a 32-year-old recording.
It’s not really Universal’s fault though. In 1968, no-one was saying “Hey, let’smake 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 didback then, although I’m more used to it on the aforementioned ‘Best of’ CD. It ispresented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
Extras : Chapters :
There are 11 chapters, one for each song. The track listing is as follows and there’sno 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 withAmerican comic Steven Wright.
Overall, as is the way with all music DVDs, the only people to buy them will be fansof the band. Most of them will already have the video or the Greatest Hits DVD and ifyou have both I’d recommend you stick with those, especially since there’s no extrason the DVD and the CD contains all the best tracks and complete too, since there’shardly any of Spanish Caravan.
The concert does contain some memorable moments though, such asMorrison’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…
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
0OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.