Watch The Doors’ Spectacular ‘Light My Fire’ at 1970 Isle of Wight
by Best Classic Bands Staff
The last concert by The Doors ever filmed was at the legendary Isle of Wight festival in August 1970. The five-day event also featured performances by such classic rock greats as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joni Mitchell, the Moody Blues, Chicago, Sly and the Family Stone, Free, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, among many others.
The Doors hit the stage at 2:00 a.m. on August 30. Their performance was officially released for the first time in 2018 as The Doors: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970.
The last known unseen performance of the Doors in existence, The Doors: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 was completely recut and remixed from the original film footage. Fully approved by the Doors, this previously unreleased concert was restored via the latest 21st century technology, color correcting and visually upgrading the original footage. The entire concert, now presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital sound, was mixed from the original multi-track audio by longtime Doors engineer/mixer/co-producer Bruce Botnick. Fans may have caught a glimpse of this performance in the 1997 Isle of Wight film Message To Love, however this DVD presents the Doors’ set with the full-length songs in maximum visual and sound quality.
Watch the spectacular version of “Light My Fire” from the release
Related: When the Doors defied Ed Sullivan
The film captures the band’s performance, as well as offering a snapshot of the era, with footage of fans (over 600,000 in attendance) tearing down barriers and crashing the gates to gain access to the event.
“Light My Fire” was released in the spring of 1967. It made its chart debut on June 3 and ultimately reached #1 on July 29.
Watch the trailer for the Isle of Wight release
Related: Looking back at the Doors’ second album, Strange Days
The Doors: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Track Listing
1. Roadhouse Blues
2. Backdoor Man
3. Break on Through (To The Other Side)
4. When The Music’s Over
5. Ship of Fools
6. Light My Fire
7. The End (medley): Across The Sea/Away in India/Crossroads Blues/Wake Up
Watch the Doors perform “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” at the Isle of Wight in 1970
4 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationThey preceded The Who, Who came on at 2am and played till 5am. The Doors came on some time after midnight. I was right at the front.
Wow, I’ve seen some in concert footage over the years but that version of ‘light my fire’ is truly something else.
Morrison totally out of it, shambolic at best, but how Densmore Manzarek and Krieger kept it going was nothing short of miraculous.
Absolutely loved it thanks for posting
I always loved the Doors’ music as each and every one of their records came out. And I feel like I’ve grown to appreciate them even more as I’ve grown older. I don’t agree with critics that some of their records were not as good as others, as each one offers a unique side to this remarkable band. You may not like some aspects of certain records as much as others, but it doesn’t make one LP more inferior than others, as they each offer truly original music that holds up over time. There’s no throwaways on Doors’ records. In terms of this concert, listening to the whole thing, they seem tighter here than in previous live recordings I’ve heard, and Robby Krieger shows once and for all what a talented, innovative, and really unique guitar player he is — no rock guitar player really plays like him, especially in that era, when most players were largely influenced by Clapton, or in their dreams, by Hendrix.
While I loved this show, and the one-of-a-kind Jim Morrison seems more on point than he had in a while, I will say that it seems sad that, in 1970, he’s already going for lower octave notes, in some of these live songs, than reaching for the higher octave notes that he recorded. But as we all know now, the condition that he was apparently in, at this time, had much to do with his demise, not long after.
For me, Ray Manzarek always personified the Doors. Certainly post-Morrison, he was always a “print the legend” guy. Maybe Jim was subdued here because Roger Daltrey supposedly drank him under the table.
But Ray’s keyboards moved The Doors through their unique space in music as much as Morrison’s lyrics and persona.
Miles Davis was also at the Isle of Wight Fest in 1970. I would have loved to hear what a Miles/Manzarek collaboration might have been.