Brooklyn, NY
Barclays Center
Barclays Center
So, as promised, I'm sitting at 25,000 feet working away at trying to describe everything that happened on Friday night at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Know now that this is likely to get long and I'm also likely to forget a few things. It was such an incredible night of music and stories and the energy of the whole event just was one I'll never forget.
I was going to open with some of the pre-show festivities, but this post should be long enough with out them, so they'll be saved for the next installment. Get to the meat of the matter. Leslie and I were in our seats by 6:45 (right next to Janice and Randal in a happy coincidence!) as we had received an email prior to leaving that everyone MUST be in their seat by 7:00 because the show was being filmed for HBO (to air April 29.) Looking around the arena I instantly knew there would be no way that would happen. The place was still mostly empty, including all the tables on the main floor. About 7:00 we started getting announcements that the show would be starting soon and would everyone please take their seats. That's really when things filled in and the floor quickly filled up with the variety of celebrities and friends and families of the bands being inducted (as of course were the inductees.) We saw several members of Yes pass by our seats near the back of the arena. About 7:15 the lights went down, the music came up and the show was on.
The show opened with Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone and the man behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, welcoming one and all to the show and listing off the names of those being inducted. As each performer was announced roars would rise up from the crowd. When he got to Journey, a good size cheer went up that was soon challenged by the introduction of Yes. The final act mentioned was Pearl Jam and the place went absolutely nuts. They were definitely the top dog Friday night by way of response. I wasn't particularly surprised by that. When the ballot was announced and I saw Pearl Jam among the nominees beside making me feel old, I knew they would breeze their way in the door. The introduction ended with Jann paying tribute to Chuck Berry and off it went into a memorial tribute to the founder of rock and roll.
While the tribute played, we studied the happenings on the stage below the screen. A performer was set up to open the show, but we weren't sure who it would be. We had heard a rumor that Journey was going to open the show, but looking at the set up that was on the stage as the show started it was clearly not part of Journey's gear. ...
{pause for stupid guy in seat in front of me leaning back making it impossible to read what I'm typing.}
{delay for SF Giants Opening day}
... We could see people coming on stage and one was a violin player. Ok, definitely not Journey. As the tribute ended, I noticed a silhouette of someone standing at the front of the stage and I said "that looks like Jeff Lynne." The lights came up, and ELO is on stage and launches into Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven". They followed with two of their own songs, "Evil Woman" and "Mr. Blue Sky." ELO isn't a band I'm hugely familiar with and generally falls into the "oh yeah, I like that song, I forgot about that one" category. They left the stage and the screen behind the stage showed the tribute clip about the history of ELO. While this was happening, down on the stage, there was a scramble as the road crew for the show pulled off all of ELOs gear. Dhani Harrison came out at the end of the video and began the induction speech for ELO. It was a fairly long speech as much of it was about the family relationship between the Harrisons and Jeff Lynne. There was a good deal of humor and it was clear how close of a friend Jeff Lynne was to George Harrison. My favorite part was Dhani talking about how Jeff Lynne was an alien from another planet and that, really, all of his father's friends were aliens who were sensitive to Earth's sun and up popped a photo of the Traveling Wilburys all decked out in sunglasses. Then the members of ELO came up and gave their speeches with Jeff Lynne closing out the speeches.
This was the only induction that went by this pattern of having the band perform first. The rest all had the pattern of a video introduction that ran about 3-5 minutes covering the career and history of the inductee including interviews with the inductees. The video would be followed by the person presenting the inductee by giving a speech highlighting the accomplishments and influences of the whoever was being inducted. While this was going on the stage would get switched out for the next performance. Then the performer would come up and give their speeches and when that was done off to get set up to perform two or three songs. For the most part the speeches were very similar across the performers, so I'll only mention a few highlights that stood out especially since many of them are already appearing on line for folks to read and see.
ELO was followed by Jackson Browne taking the stage to induct Joan Baez, who I was shocked to learn hadn't been inducted before now. While even she admitted it was an odd choice since her background is folk music not rock and roll, her influence on the music and politics of the 1960s can't be overlooked. Additionally rock and roll isn't just one thing -- as just this class of inductees shows -- its origins include folk, blues, and jazz influences. It is the music of the people and that's where Joan Baez fits in to this. She was one of just a few of the inductees who had clearly practiced her speech. The best part was how she said this induction made young people find out who she was and that her granddaughter didn't know who she was until she was able to bring her backstage at a Taylor Swift concert. I laughed and even remembered that concert since it was the Taylor Swift show here in the Bay Area at Levi's Stadium. No, I didn't go, but Joan Baez strutting down the stage with Taylor Swift is going to make the local entertainment section of the paper every time. I remember thinking at the time how cool that was that a young star was recognizing her predecessors and someone who knocked down doors for her to reach the success that she has today.
Joan then did her performance center stage with just herself and a guitar for "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". She then introduced a few guests to come on stage and perform with her and out came the Indigo Girls and Mary Chapin Carpenter. They performed "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon)" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" together with the crowd joining in on the chorus of the latter. The simplicity of their performances was what made it most memorable, just a couple of acoustic guitars and vocals. When I got home, I had time to catch up on a backload of newspapers I hadn't had time to read and discovered that she is planning to retire from touring and recording after this year, so if she's coming to town near you this year make a chance to go see her.
Yes came up next and were inducted by
The induction of Tupac Shakur followed and that's when a lot of folks left their seats for a break. I know a lot of people don't feel that rap should be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I'm not of that mind. Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include blues, jazz, folk, R&B, and soul music. Like Joan Baez and her folk background, Tupac and rap is a natural progression of the music of the people. I don't know a whole lot about Tupac, but I do know much of what he sang about was from a socio-political perspective. Snoop Dogg gave a great induction speech and accepted on behalf of Tupac. Alicia Keys then came out with her band and performed in tribute. I won't pretend to know what she performed -- I was never the target audience for Tupac's music and couldn't name one of his songs to save my life. The only thing I recognized was a bit of Bruce Hornsby's "That's Just the Way It Is", which I assume was sampled for one of Tupac's songs and got me perked up as I am a fan of Bruce Hornsby. Snoop Dogg and a couple of other rappers then came out to perform a couple of songs. As I posted on Facebook, I didn't know what I was seeing but it was a really good performance and the crowd really got into it.
Journey's induction followed Tupac and since I've already covered that in my previous post I'll move along to Nile Rodgers who was being inducted by Pharrell for musical excellence. When his introduction video played there were snips of some of the many songs he has performed on and/or produced and showed many of the people he's worked with over the years. I knew he had worked with almost everybody, but had forgotten some of the specific songs/albums he was involved with. His speech was quite good and he got very emotional at one point saying something along the lines of he just wanted to be a background session guy and never expected to be where he was. There wasn't any performance associated with his induction since he wasn't going in as a performer.
The In Memoriam segment came up next and the video screens showed a bunch of musicians and music industry people who had died since last year's induction ceremonies, much like you'd see at the Grammys or Oscars. I didn't watch the whole video as I took that moment to catch up a bit on Facebook, but two of the faces that popped up and got me were George Michael (for some reason I really didn't expect to see him in that segment, denial perhaps?) and Benny Collins aka "Wolfman Black" of Journey's original road crew. That one I thought was a really nice touch. The last face on the screen though was Prince, and as the lights came back up on the stage it was time for Lenny Kravitz's tribute performance.
Lenny opened with a really interesting interpretation of "When Doves Cry" complete with a gospel choir. It was quite different from the original, but really well done. He followed it with "The Cross" which was a song I wasn't that familiar with but was also very well done. I've seen Lenny a couple of times in the past and he's just an excellent performer.
And finally it was time for the "headliners" of this induction ceremony. While everyone being inducted was more than deserving, Pearl Jam was clearly the biggest act going in based on the overall response of the audience and their position as the final act of the night. In addition to seeing Joan Baez going in, Pearl Jam was another of the class of 2017 I really wanted to see beyond the induction of my all time favorite band. I've referred to Pearl Jam as my "college band" -- when they hit the scene in the early 90s, I really enjoyed their stuff (and, okay, I was just out of college when they hit.) I think Ten is a brilliant album and I followed them fairly closely the first few years of their career. For some reason though, I never saw them live -- probably for lack of someone to go with as it was definitely before I'd go to shows on my own. Having them inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame really made me feel my age. These guys are my contemporaries, that they've been around for 25 years is just stunning.
David Letterman inducted them as a last minute replacement for Neil Young who had to cancel due to illness. He's looking an awful lot like Santa Claus these days. He gave a nice speech and included a story about having the riff from "Black" stuck in his head for months and another about Eddie Vedder giving his son a guitar after appearing on one of his last shows. When the band made their way to the stage, the entire arena went nuts. By far this was the loudest ovation anyone had received all night. I was on my feet cheering as well. As I looked at the band on stage, I kind of chuckled to myself as I thought "when the heck did Pearl Jam become a bunch of middle aged accountants?" Most of the guys looked way too straight laced to be rock stars, much less part of the grunge movement of the 1990s! (I had a similar thought a few months ago when they appeared on The Late Show with Steven Colbert, though that time it was "My God! Pearl Jam is a middle age dad band now!") I certainly have a hard time remembering I'm in my late 40s now, so seeing these guys who are also now in their late 40s is a little jarring. We're all supposed to still be in our 20s!
Anyway, the various members of Pearl Jam gave their speeches and they wrapped up with Eddie Vedder. His speech was a bit rambling and jumped all over the place, but it did weirdly flow from one part to the next. He did have to add his side of the tale about Letterman's bit about "Black." He led into it by talking about how he watched a lot of Letterman's show before making it big, so it was a regular thing for him to keep doing after success came. He then told a story about getting really stoned one night and watching the show when Letterman was going through the "Black" riff and then looked directly into the camera and said "Eddie? Eddie? You need to come on the show Eddie." Naturally in his state, Eddie thought he was imagining things and "that it might be time for rehab."
Pearl Jam's performance closed out the show with "Alive", "Given to Fly" which was dedicated to Michael J. Fox who was in the audience, and "Better Man" which is probably my favorite Pearl Jam song. They were absolutely amazing. I've always known Pearl Jam was a great live band and this short three song set totally lived up to their reputation. A very brief break followed to allow time for other inductees and presenters to join them on stage for the close out jam song. Neal and Jon were representatives from Journey, Dhani Harrison and Geddy Lee were among the presenters to join, and there were a couple of guys from Yes on stage. I'm not sure if there was anyone from ELO since the only one I know/recognize is Jeff Lynne and I don't remember seeing him on stage. They closed out the show with Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World." SO. MUCH. ENERGY! Everyone in the place was totally rocking out and even the celebrities in the front rows on the floor were up on their feet and fist pumping along. Since Neil Young wasn't in attendance, Neal Schon go to take on the guitar solo and he killed it.
The show wrapped up about midnight and I'll be really curious how it gets edited down for HBO. The running time was nearly 5 hours and the transitions from one thing to the next were a lot shorter than I expected them to be. I imagine a couple of songs will get cut and maybe some of the induction speeches from the bands (I could see Aynsley Dunbar's speech falling on the cutting room floor for example), but there wasn't a whole lot of filler in the show that you could really trim down.
All in all, this was a great night and a totally memorable experience. I'm actually looking forward to watching it all again in a couple of weeks on HBO* and being able to relive it all. I particularly look forward to seeing Journey again because I was so hyped up when they came out it's really kind of a blur in my mind. It was so completely worth all the hassle and expense it took to get to and see this show. I knew if this day ever came I wasn't going to miss it for anything, and it all lived up to my expectations and more. (Or almost more, there's just one small thing that would have made it perfect....)
*Edit: The HBO broadcast of this show really chopped it to bits. Both Journey and Joan Baez had songs edited out. All of the speeches were edited, with several dropped from the larger inductee groups. The broadcast really had a hard time capturing the energy of the event and it felt much more staid than it was in person. The most criminal thing however, was running the closing credits over the finale and not showing the whole thing. All in all a record of the event, but not in line with being there in person.
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