Customer Reviews

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

While Time Life is selling a 9 disc set, this 3 disc package gives you the best bang for your buck. Over 40 performances of once in a lifetime combinations of classic rock and roll artists. I think most everyone will find the track listing helpful:

DVD 1
[1] Mick Jagger Inducts The Beatles 1988
Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1988) I Saw Her Standing There
[2] Cream Acceptance Speech 1993
Cream (1993) Sunshine Of Your Love
[3] Bruce Springsteen Inducts Roy Orbison 1987
Roy Orbison With Bruce Springsteen And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1987) Oh, Pretty Woman
[4] Creedence Clearwater Revival Acceptance Speech 1993
John Fogerty & Friends (1993) Green River
[5] Eddie Vedder Inducts The Doors 1993
The Doors With Eddie Vedder (1993) Light My Fire
[6] Tom Petty Inducts Buffalo Springfield 1997
Crosby, Stills & Nash With Tom Petty (1997) For What It's Worth
[7] Phil Lesh And Mickey Hart Induct Jefferson Airplane 1996
Jefferson Airplane (1996) Volunteers
[8] Santana Acceptance Speech 1998
Santana With Peter Green (1998) Black Magic Woman
[9] Crosby, Stills & Nash Acceptance Speech 1997
Crosby, Stills & Nash With James Taylor And Emmylou Harris (1997) Teach Your Children
[10] Jackson Browne Acceptance Speech 2004
Jackson Browne (2004) Running On Empty
[11] Eric Clapton Inducts The Band 1994
The Band With Eric Clapton (1994) The Weight
[12] Bruce Springsteen Acceptance Speech 1999
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (1999) The Promised Land
[13] Olivia And Dhani Harrison Accept for George Harrison 2004
Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood And Dhani Harrison (2004) Handle With Care
[14] Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, Dhani Harrison And Prince (2004) While My Guitar Gently Weeps
[15] Paul McCartney Acceptance Speech 1999
Paul McCartney And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1999) Let It Be

BONUS MATERIAL
INDUCTION SPEECHES
1) Paul McCartney Inducts John Lennon 1994
2) Bruce Springsteen Inducts Jackson Browne 2004
3) Elton John Inducts The Beach Boys 1988
4) Jann Wenner Inducts Sex Pistols 2006
5) Pete Townshend Inducts The Rolling Stones 1989

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE
1) John Fogerty, Robbie Robertson And Bruce Springsteen Rehearsal, 1993
2) Cream Rehearsal, 1993
3) Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady And Paul Kantner Backstage, 1996
4) Crosby, Stills & Nash Rehearsal And Backstage, 1997
5) The Band And Eric Clapton Rehearsal, 1994

DVD 2
[1] Jackson Browne And Melissa Etheridge (1995) Wake Up Little Susie
The Concert For The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
[2] The Rolling Stones Acceptance Speech 1989
Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1988) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
[3] Mick Jagger, Tina Turner And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1989) Honky Tonk Women
[4] James Taylor (1997) Woodstock A Tribute To Joni Mitchell
[5] James Taylor Inducts Crosby, Stills & Nash 1997
Crosby, Stills & Nash (1997) Wooden Ships
[6] R.E.M. Acceptance Speech 2007
R.E.M. With Eddie Vedder (2007) Man On The Moon
[7] Kid Rock Inducts Aerosmith 2001
Aerosmith With Kid Rock (2001) Sweet Emotion
[8] Keith Richards Inducts ZZ Top 2004
ZZ Top (2004) La Grange
[9] ZZ Top (2004) Tush
[10] AC/DC Acceptance Speech 200
AC/DC (2003) Highway To Hell
[11] Flea Inducts Metallica 2009
Metallica (2009) Master Of Puppets
[12] Bono Inducts Bruce Springsteen 1999
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (1999)
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
[13] Bruce Springsteen Inducts U2 2005
U2 (2005) Pride (In The Name Of Love)
[14] Neil Young Inducts The Jimi Hendrix Experience 1992
Neil Young And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1992) All Along The Watchtower A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix

BONUS MATERIAL
INDUCTION SPEECHES
1) Mick Jagger Inducts The Beatles 1988
2) Flea Inducts Metallica 2009
3) Keith Richards Inducts Leo Fender 1992
4) James Taylor Inducts Crosby, Stills & Nash 1997
5) Paul McCartney Inducts James Taylor 2000
6) Billy Joel Inducts The Righteous Brothers 2003

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE
1) James Taylor Rehearsal, 1997
2) Metallica Rehearsal, 2009

DVD 3
[1] The Who And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1990) Won't Get Fooled Again
[2] Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Acceptance Speech 2002
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (2002) American Girl
[3] Kid Rock Inducts Lynyrd Skynyrd 2006
Lynyrd Skynyrd (2006) Sweet Home Alabama
[4] The Righteous Brothers Acceptance Speech 2003
The Righteous Brothers (2003) You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
[5] The Byrds Acceptance Speech 1991
The Byrds With Glenn Frey And Jackson Browne (1991)
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)
[6] The Mamas & The Papas Acceptance Speech 1998
The Mamas & The Papas (1998) California Dreamin'
[7] Cream (1993) Born Under A Bad Sign
[8] Traffic Acceptance Speech 2004
Traffic (2004) Dear Mr. Fantasy
[9] Stevie Nicks And Lindsey Buckingham (1998) Landslide
Fleetwood Mac Acceptance Speech 1998
Fleetwood Mac (1998) Say You Love Me
[10] Dave Grohl And Taylor Hawkins Induct Queen 2001
Queen With Dave Grohl And Taylor Hawkins (2001) Tie Your Mother Down
[11] Ray Charles Inducts Billy Joel 1999
Billy Joel (1999) Only The Good Die Young
[12] The Rolling Stones Acceptance Speech 1989
Mick Jagger And The Rock Hall Jam Band (1989) Start Me Up
[13] Billy Joel Inducts John Mellencamp 200
John Mellencamp (2008) Pink Houses
[14] U2 Acceptance Speech 2005
U2 With Bruce Springsteen (2005) I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

BONUS MATERIAL
INDUCTION SPEECHES
1) Jakob Dylan Inducts Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 2002
2) Lou Reed Inducts Dion 1989
3) Dave Matthews Inducts Traffic 2004
4) Ray Charles Inducts Billy Joel 1999
5) Billy Joel Inducts John Mellencamp 2008
6) Kid Rock Inducts Lynyrd Skynyrd 2006
7) Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne Induct George Harrison 2004

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE
1) Backstage, 2004
2) Backstage, 2003
3) Lynyrd Skynyrd

I think that all should speak for itself. Play it loud.

The bottom line is that this 3-disc set is Rock and Roll Heaven for true fans of the form.

Too many magic moments and balls-to-the-wall performances to mention them all, but suffice to say that there are no duds here. Off the top of my head, some major hi-lites include Santana's blistering "Black Magic Woman," Metallica's epic "Master of Puppets," U2 and Springsteen's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," The Doors and Eddie Vedder's mind-blowing "Light My Fire," Prince's over-the-top guitar solo during "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and... Well, it goes on and on.

Also, let's not forget the many memorable speeches, which range from the poignant (Paul McCartney's "letter" to John Lennon), to the brilliant (Bono's tribute to The Boss, and vice-a-versa), to the hilarious (Pete Townshend roasting the Rolling Stones), to the absurd (Mike Love's scathing crack-up).

So ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME LIVE gets 5 stars for its content, but if I were grading this collection by what it lacks? Well that would be a different story.

For instance:

No Pink Floyd. Wow. Although their induction and performance of Wish You Were Here, with Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, can be found on the band's fantastic PULSE dvd.

No Led Zeppelin. And even though Page does unleash a fierce solo during a group version of All Along the Watchtower, this is still an unforgivable omission.

No Bob Dylan, except for a completely lame cameo.

No David Bowie. Was he even inducted? Yeesh...

No Police.

No Talking Heads.

You get the picture.

Pretty outrageous stuff, especially when you consider the number of artists who needlessly appear multiple times, like Jagger, Springsteen, U2, Cream, CS&N, and others. All of whom are great, but I would have rathered see as many artists as possible represented.

So if these exclusions bother you, then I understand. But if I'm going to judge this collection for what it is (as opposed to for what it isn't), then it's 5 stars all the way.

Five stars are too few. I'd like to give this set 100! This is really a wonderful set, both for us baby boomers and our kids, who get to see and hear the musical icons of the 60s and 70s. And we baby boomers see performances by some of the newer artists, like Metallica, and Eddie Vedder.

The best part of this fabulous set is seeing these musicians induct other musicians and accept induction themselves. They honor their peers, reflect on their work, and share their joys and sorrows, successes and mistakes, and lament over the passing of many of them.

It's sad but joyful to see John Phillips perform with the Mamas and Papas (sans Cass Elliott). And George Harrison, who was inducted both as part of the Beatles and posthumously for his own work, by his widow Olivia and his son Dhani.

Billy Joel, when inducting John Mellencamp, speaks of the possibility becoming a rock icon by dying prematurely. He says, "If we die young we become a rock icon but we also become dead, and what could be worse than becoming fertilizer?"

Ray Charles inducts Billy Joel and thanks the Hall of Fame for including him in the ceremony, yet another poignant moment.

Bruce Springsteen participates in several inductions, one of which is for Ray Orbison. Springsteen tells of how as a child he listened to Orbison's ballads on the radio at night and was so moved he vowed never to speak to a woman again!

There are so many moving performances, among them, the Righteous Brothers singing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," with string and choral accompaniment, the Byrds singing "Turn, Turn, Turn," and the Who singing "Won't Get Fooled Again." Eric Clapton admits to not having played with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce for 25 years.

Among others who speak and perform are Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The Doors do a riveting "Light My Fire" with Ray Manzarek's swirling keyboards, as fantastic as 40 years ago. Eddie Vedder sings, faithful to Jim Morrison's brooding, sensual style.

Mick Jagger makes several appearances, both accepting induction and inducting others. The Stones let loose with Honky Tonk Woman, joined by Tina Turner and other. Jagger, when inducting the Beatles, recalls the rivalry between them and the Stones. He and George Harrison and Bruce Springsteen perform a rousing "I Saw Her Standing There."

As he did in the seventies, Steve Winwood and Traffic sear us with "Dear Mr. Fantasy." His wail is as clear as it was back then. It's as if no time has passed.

Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne, Melissa Etheridge, Santana, and the Band appear as well, and carry us back. We may have aged but our music still pierces.

leaving out Led Zeppelin is like leaving the A out of the alphabet.

my other complaint is inductions are chopped to pieces & thrown across multiple dvds. a prime example is the Stones. Pete Townshend inducts them on Disc 1, Mick accepts on both Discs 2 & 3. His speech with Keith is chopped in both places. why not just have their complete acceptance speech in one place. definitely some butcher did the editing here.

most likely, they'll release a correctly sequenced version probably in the future on Blu-ray & milk consumers for more money. until then we are stucked with this chop suey version.

2 stars for the butchered editing, 4 stars for the material, -1 star for no Zeppelin.

Many, many great moments. Especially liked the exuberant version of I Saw Her Standing There--watch for Springsteen and Jagger competing for the mike and screwing up the lyrics. Prince's lead on While My Guitar Gently Weeps is a must see/hear. Speeches were good--liked McCartney's daughter's t-shirt which said "It's About f---ing time". Referring, of course, to taking almost 30 years to induct Paul into the RRHOF as a solo artist. At an average of $10 per DVD, it's a good price, though most of the stuff you'll only watch once.

Don't mind the people that ding this set because it omits so many stars. Other DVD sets will eventually be released. The success of this set will ensure that more archival footage will be released.

When this was broadcast on HBO, they also offered all of the songs on these DVDs on pre-recorded CDs--makes it easier to get on your iPod. Surprised that they're no here on Amazon or the PBS website. No matter, the DVDs can be uploaded to iTunes with a bit of ingenuity.

Amazing collection - i didn't have the $$ to get the full set but after getting this I feel I got the best of it- The Bono speech inducting Bob Marley was incredible! The footage is great - sure there is some stuff missing from the big set but whatever - what you get is so great at a great cost. I played disc two during a cocktail party last week instead of playing my iPod - fun times - something different!

This DVD set is way cool, with performances I've never seen anywhere else. The Prince guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is worth the price of admission, but there's also other really great stuff, like Springsteen performing with U2, Mick Jagger performing with Tina Turner, and several other all-star jam sessions. And there's also tons of bonus features. I highly recommend these DVDs.

I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but this whole set is worth buying for one selection alone -- and it's the George Harrison tribute of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne -- with an incendiary guitar performance by a very bad ass Prince. Thing is, I've never been a fan of any of these people (except George/Beatles), nor has the tune ever been a favorite, but the performance -- and the recurring chorus through Prince's solo spot -- is just staggering! The addition of George's son -- who looks a whole lot like his dad -- and even moves like him -- on acoustic guitar, adds a sense of poignancy to the whole affair. I've watched this one over and over.

THIS WAS PRODUCED BY TIME-LIFE.
This is a typical Time-Life glossy release. There are some really fantastic moments, but there is no real meat or depth.

Time-Life has been producing this type of stuff for 50 years. It started with book boxsets. Like World War II in nicely bound books with lots of pretty and sometimes amazing pictures. It gives you an overview of what happened, but cannot go into detail. Now it is CD and DVD sets that are sold through Informercials...like the Flower Power CD set being adverstised by Peter Fonda (how embarrassing).

This DVD set is exactly like that. There are great moments on this DVD set, but you know there is much more that is available that is not included.

I hated this thing at first. But, as you watch some of the performances, you got to love it.

This is a 3 DVD set with 44 songs and about 3 and a half hours of music. There are bonuses of introductions and back stage stuff that gets it up to something like 8 hours.

There is so much missing for this set, but what can you do about it? It is 3 DVDs that are filled to the max. So, either you have to add more DVDs and increase the price, or cut some stuff and replace it with other stuff. My vote would have been to cut some stuff.

I would have preferred more performances and less induction speaches and backstage stuff. But the purpose of this is to give you a feel for the whole Hall of Fame experience. Plus, you would then miss Billy Joel's induction of John Cougar Melloncamp, which is the best thing on the whole set. I am not a big Billy Joel fan, and I don't think John Cougar Melloncamp (sp?) has any business being in the Hall of Fame, but the speaches both give are very entertaining.

There are certainly some performances that could have been cut to make way for others. All of the Bruce Springsteen songs could have been cut. For some reason, he does not give very good performances of his own songs at the Hall of Fame, but does provide some very good guest performances with other groups. The songs by some lesser artists like Jackson Browne and Melloncamp could have been cut. Not just because I am not a big fans of the songs, but because the performances are nothing special.

There are many, many groups I (along with you) would have loved to have seen added. In some cases, it may not have been possible because of contractual reasons...who knows? But you would think that the Hall of Fame would make sure to own all of the performances.

As for the DVD:
One thing I really like is that you have the option of just playing the songs, or playing the songs with the inductions into the Hall of Fame. But, the inductions are so heavily edited, I don't know why they bothered including them before the songs. The full inductions for many of the acts are included in the bonus material.

What I don't like about the DVD (and most music DVDs) is that it defaults to stereo and you have to go into the menu to change it to 5.1.

The audio quality is good to excellent on all the songs. The video quality is just barely passable to OK. There is a note at the beginning of the DVD blaming the audio and video quality on the age of the tapes. That is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with the age of the performances or the tapes. They just made a decision long ago that they wouldn't do a professional job in recording these concerts. The oldest one is 1988. People have been making quality concert films for decades before this. You just need to make the effort to do so.

There are many great songs, like the Doors' Light My Fire, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Prince. For a Jimi Hendrix tribute, there is a very nice All Along the Watchtower. But, I don't know how that belongs in a Hendrix tribute. The song was written by Bob Dylan and was performed by many artists. The way they play it at the Hall of Fame, it sounds more like Dave Mason's version than Hendrix's version.

For under $30, I think this is worth getting. Many people talk about the "politics' in how the songs were chosen. But, I don't think it has anything to do with politics. I think it has everything to do with what they thought would sell...which is why Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen are all over the thing.

The performances are outstanding. I blasted the volume and danced
with my kids who otherwise groove on Miley and Jonas Bros. We had a
fabulous time! Springsteen is the boss here but it was totally fun to
see a mix of amazing stars performing together. What I also loved
about this set is that it wasn't intended for public consumption! I
don't think people really recognize that. The speeches and backstage
clips are the stars being themselves. It's great to see them standing
around a little awkward, making lame jokes with each other, as well as
inducting one another with heartfelt tributes. And sometimes they are
so pretentious it laughable!