Bright Midnight features 13 live tracks taken from 8 shows performed by the Doors between April 1969 and May 1970, a time which is roughly attendant to the emergence of the Morrison Hotel album and the legal fallout from Morrison's notorious todger-waving incident in Miami. In concert, the Doors rarely stuck to the script and several of the tracks here offer interesting divergences on now familiar themes. To offset the prospect of familiarity breeding contempt, for example, "Light My Fire" is stretched to 11 swirling minutes of interlacing organ and guitar, with Robbie Kreiger--in a moment of rare Doors comedy--even bursting into a few bars of a certain song from a very famous Julie Andrews film. A 16-minute version of "The End" from Detroit--interpolated with Morrison's inebriated, amateur dramatic musings (and shoutings) about cool jewel moons and glazed, gold and shrunken snakes--is almost unendurable, but the grizzled blues of "Been Down So Long" (pre-dating the LA Woman sessions and featuring the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica) is just one of many special enticements to fans for whom the Doors' music has never been over. --Kevin Maidment