“The Doors message is uncompromisingly loud,” says the announcer at the beginning of the British documentary, The Doors Are Open. “Do not adjust your set.”
On November 11, Eagle Rock Entertainment finally released Feast Of Friends. This long ago film created by The Doors themselves back in 1968, has never been officially released until now. Although various bits and pieces have popped up in music videos and documentaries on the band, it has never really seen the light of day as a whole entity. As Doors guitar player Robby Krieger told Glide in a recent interview, the reason was primarily because “we never really finished it.” But Feast Of Friends is now available for everyone, after having been audio and visually remastered. Some poor quality bootleg copies have floated around for years, coming from Jim Morrison’s very own copy which he had taken with him to Paris in 1971 just before his death. That is the speculation, at least.
However, Feast Of Friends, the DVD, is actually more than this one film and together the various segments make for a scrumptious view of The Doors on and off the lighted stage. Formed in 1965 by Morrison and keyboard player/fellow UCLA film school student Ray Manzarek, the band bubbled over with a hypnotic blend of Greek poetry and blues psychedelia. Giving a glimpse into their life a la 1968, it tells an enlightening story of what was going on. One minute you have the band trying to do a performance amidst total chaos, the next minute Morrison is gently wiping the blood off a young girl’s face after having been hit with a chair. The Encore, which immediately follows Feast Of Friends and contains the same footage interspersed with unseen tidbits, is even more fun. Altogether, you see the band backstage, Morrison playing piano as the others sit idly by, eventually looking up at the camera smiling: “How’s that for a shit-eating grin;” there’s hotel room card games; photographer Richard Avedon having a fit at the sight of the documentary cameras entering his sacred studio; the step-by-step breakdown of recording “Wild Child;” and band members swimming in the Kern river and having a fun-filled ride on a boat.
The British documentary, The Doors Are Open, also from 1968, is a treasure trove of live music from London’s Roundhouse, which Krieger told Glide was, in his opinion, “our best performance ever videoed.” With the music accompanying scenes of world unrest – Vietnam, protests and political talking heads – it paints a deeper portrait of The Doors as a voice of their generation. “We didn’t really think of ourselves as political,” Krieger explained a few weeks ago. “We just thought of ourselves as like a mirror of society.” But there is something about their music that just cannot be separated from the times it was created in. And for younger fans who only know these events from high school History class, it opens the doors of perception a little bit wider. As the aforementioned announcer emotes on the band’s place in the turmoil, he calls Morrison a “poet, prophet and politician” who comments on society as he sees it. And the music plays with a never-blinking urgency: “Back Door Man,” “Light My Fire,” “Unknown Soldier.”
Wrapping up with a 1967 Toronto performance of the band’s notorious “The End” that was originally broadcast in Canada in October of that year, in August the following year in America, along with some interviews attached to it, it’s a nice way to tie the bow on this wonderful package.
