Dance on Fire

AMG Review of Dance on Fire

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

Dance on Fire was the first video overview of the Doors' output, dating from 1985, and it was fairly controversial even then for incorporating modern, newly shot footage with vintage film (some of its silent) of the group members from the 1960s. The "L.A. Woman" video was put together for the sensibilities of the MTV generation, and there's not a lot to be learned from it. By contrast, the video footage accompanying "Break on Through" was very forward-looking in its time, made up of tight close-ups of the bandmembers and their instruments at a time when most promotional clips tended to give medium shots of the artist miming. Clips such as that debut, and later films accompanying "Unknown Soldier," are interspersed with proper performance clips from The Ed Sullivan Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The Ed Sullivan appearance was famous, or notorious, depending upon which side of the cultural and age dividing line one was on; in keeping with the '60s paranoia about decorum on a family show, Sullivan and company objected to the word "higher" in the lyric of "Light My Fire" and told Jim Morrison that the only way they could do the song was to change it. The band agreed, and then did the song live with the offending word intact, and they were never allowed on the Sullivan show again as a result. What the clip reveals is just how foolish the Sullivan people were; at a time when most groups new to the show were so stiff and nervous that they went through a rote performance of whatever hit they were doing, the Doors clip shows an act so cool and play so hot at the same time that they manage little moments of improvisation on the three-minute short version of "Light My Fire," and Morrison fairly sets the stage on fire with his voice. "Touch Me," a song that the singer liked a lot less, fares equally well in a live performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, with the group sharing the stage with backup musicians recruited from the house orchestra, which doesn't stop bandmembers from pounding away like their careers depended on it (and it's fascinating to see Ray Manzarek throwing cues to the other musicians as the performance progresses).