Dance On Fire

Original 1985 MCA/Universal Press Release

Universal City, CA — The Doors, one of the most provocative and controversial rock groups of all time, are captured during their glorious heyday on the new MCA/Universal Home Video release, The Doors: Dance On Fire.

The Doors: Dance on Fire is a collection of live performances, promotional clips and rare behind-the-scenes film footage. This definitive look at the musical and cultural impact of The Doors, particularly the late Jim Morrison, has received widespread critical acclaim: “For new and old fans it’s sexy, excitingly paced, charismatic, moving. For critics it reveals undeniable invention and presence…. It’s amazing to watch.” — John Piccarella, HighFidelity.

Dance On Fire contains 14 songs drawn from television and concert appearances including “Light My Fire”, “Touch Me”, “Crystal Ship”, “People Are Strange”, “Break On Through” and “Riders On The Storm”. Also contained is a riotous version of “Roadhouse Blues” from the Doors’ 1968 summer concert tour of America and an original non-performance segment of “LA Woman” directed by Ray Manzarek.

Track Listing

Break On Through	The original Elektra Records promo clip
People Are Strange	Performances from the Ed Sullivan Show and Murray The K in New York.
Light My Fire	Performance from the Ed Sullivan Show
Wild Child	Filmed at the Elektra recording session
LA Woman	A new film directed by Ray Manzarek
Unknown Soldier	The original Elektra promo clip, banned since 1968
Roadhouse Blues	Filmed during the 1968 American Tour
Love Me Two Times	Live performance from Danish television
Touch Me	Performance from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
Moonlight Drive	Performance from the Jonathan Winters Show
The End	Live performance from the 1968 Hollywood Bowl concert
Crystal Ship	Performance from American Bandstand
Adagio	Composed by Tommasso Albinoni/arranged by Paul Harris and the Doors

Credits

Executive Producer	George Paige
Creative Director	Ray Manzarek
Sound Design	Paul Rothchild
Associate Producer	Linda Weiss
Doors Management	Ben Edmunds

Archivist Notes

This release was done in conjunction with the creation of six new videos including Ray’s epic LA Woman video. It contains complete songs unlike “Tribute to Jim Morrison” which was mostly clips. Where on “Tribute” they used interview footage to transition between songs, on “Dance On Fire” they used Jim’s spoken poetry with dark imagery of Jim.

Random notes on individual videos:

Break On Through	This is the original film that Jac Holzman put together for the band to promote their album and first single. Click here for more details. For the best available copy of this, check out the 2014 release, “R-Evolution“.
People Are Strange	This video is a combination of the Ed Sullivan show performance, the Murray The K performance as some ’80s footage of people and locations in Los Angeles. The audio is synced to the studio version of People Are Strange. Dance on Fire (and it’s re-release on The Doors Collection) is the only release this version was included on. The version included on R-Evolution is just of the Murray the K show. The complete Ed Sullivan version has never been released by The Doors.
Wild Child	This was one of the “new” videos put together for the Dance on Fire release. It features newly shot footage of a Native American boy finding Indian artifacts in an abandoned shack, then doing a Shaman’s dance at the end. This is combined with black and white stock footage of Native American ceremonial dances, plus some newly found archival footage of The Doors recording Wild Child in the studio. The segue into the studio version of Wild Child song is Jim’s poem “Awake”. Click here to watch. After the release of this video, The Doors would find the rest of the footage of the band in the studio recording Wild Child and would redo the video for “The Soft Parade“, removing all of the Native American boy and stock footage and replace with the recording studio video and some synced audio from the recording session. Dance On Fire is the only release featuring this specific version.
LA Woman	This video, featuring John Doe and Kristina Ericksen, was Ray’s big project for this release. This is the “censored” version that has the nudity cut out of two scenes. The “Directors Cut” which includes the two nude scenes would be included in the DVD release of “The Doors Collection“.
Unknown Soldier	This is the original 16mm film that The Doors released to promote their single of the same name. Click here for details. A newer print from Bruce Botnick’s personal archives would be used for the Doors Collection re-release. Neither of those versions included the “birdcage” intro that was on the original film. The uncut version was finally put out on the 2014 “R-Evolution” release.
Roadhouse Blues	This was the first of a series of videos that The Doors would put out utilizing the 1968 footage shot by Paul Ferrara for the film ‘Feast of Friends‘. Since “Feast” was never released, they had a lot of footage to choose from. Although all of the videos are great, in my opinion, this and the 1983 Gloria video are the best due to the fact that they utilized some of the best footage from the vaults. This video also uses the amazing live version of Roadhouse Blues that was released on “An American Prayer”.
Love Me Two Times	This footage, from the Danish television performance in 1968 is actually a medley of Texas Radio and the Big Beat and Love Me Two Times. It also incorporates stills of the band throughout the video. You can see the entire Danish TV performance on the “Soundstage Performances” DVD.
Crystal Ship	This footage consists of the American Bandstand performance combined with archival footage from the Kern river. The complete American Bandstand performance can be seen on the 2014 release R-Evolution.
Adagio	The footage used in this video actually comes directly from “Feast of Friends“. In the original FOF though, the music used was “Neptune The Mystic”, where in this version they use “Adagio”. Adagio was actually a favorite of the band and was included in a different part of Feast of Friends, when the group is riding the monorail.