|
PERFORMANCES SETLIST
Cher Kool & the Gang Dionne Warwick Peter Frampton Jimmy Buffett A Tribe Called Quest Mary J. Blige Ozzy Osborne Dave Matthews Band Encore:
|
The very definition of “Rock and Roll” has changed and evolved over the years, especially in regard to this year’s annual inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Core genres of many different kinds of music came together in this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, held on October 19 at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, OH. and we were there as part of our “Rocktober on the Road” series.
The over five-hour event was streamed live on Disney+ for the second consecutive year and is archived there, but makes its network television debut on ABC on January 1 (available on Hulu the next day), to start 2025 with a bang.
The location of this year’s ceremony shifted to the museum’s hometown of Cleveland after being at Barclays Center in Brooklyn last year and rotates to Los Angeles in 2025. This year’s inductees included Cher, Kool & The Gang, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, A Tribe Called Quest, Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne and Dave Matthews Band. Special awards of musical excellence were also awarded to Dionne Warwick, MC5, Norman Whitfield and the late Jimmy Buffett, while musical influence awards went to a trio of blues legends, Alexis Korner, Big Mama Thornton, and the recently passed John Mayall.
Cher
The long evening got underway strongly, with UK singer Dua Lipa dressed in a dark thigh-baring dress singing Cher’s auto-tune driven 1998 comeback hit, “Believe” with the megastar herself coming out to duet on the song, halfway through.
The always-in-fashion Zendaya came out in a Bob Mackie tribute dress to induct the music legend, mentioning how Cher, like other music icons, has continually evolved her sound and image, conquering genres while innovating and re-inventing others.
Cher acknowledged her own perseverance in a male-dominated industry and her accidental but successful move into acting, and that it was “easier getting divorced from two men than getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame”; generally being grateful and playing nice, despite previous comments she’d do different.
A return to the stage with the night’s house band, The Roots, she sang “If I Could Turn Back Time” and seemingly did, sounding timeless and the hit single was embellished with a stinging guitar solo from Joel (Foreigner, Whitesnake, Night Ranger) Hoekstra.
Kool & The Gang
The sound shifted to the soul funk of Kool & The Gang, the legendary (and the most sampled) R&B band that began in 1969 who can boast having won two Grammy Awards, seven American Music Awards, 25 Top Ten R&B hits, 9 Top Ten Pop hits and 31 gold and platinum albums.
Public Enemy’s Chuck D helped everyone remember their decades-long impact and a hit-filled rousing medley found singer James “J.T.” Taylor (who joined in 1979) performing with co-founder Robert “Kool” Bell and the rest of the band, for the first time since 1999 (along with The Roots in tow), complete with an onscreen disco ball and confetti cannons.
Dionne Warwick
Mimicking the honoree’s 1970’s look of a black sequined pantsuit, EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson began singing signature hit “Ill Never Love This Way Again” with her usual vocal power and scale, giving way after the first verse, to the 83 years-young smiling Ms. Warwick herself, who strode out in a similar outfit, to help finish the song.
We thought Doja Cat might make a surprise appearance during the 1963 Burt Bacharach / Hal David classic “Walk on By” (since she recently sampled it for her own hit), but Warwick needed no help in showing the Queen of Twitter can still belt it out, like a half-century before.
“They finally got it right,” Warwick said after Teyana Taylor’s induction speech, perhaps acknowledging her two previous unsuccessful nominations, in a playful but eye-winking manner that could only be categorized as classic Ms. Warwick.
MC5
The influential Detroit-area rockers were inducted by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello with his usual spirited and intelligent gusto, somewhat made somber by the deaths of the band’s guitarist Wayne Kramer in Feb, manager John Sinclair in April, and drummer Dennis Thompson in May.
A kick out the jams musical tribute would have been very appropriate, especially with guitarist Morello and other very influenced rock members on-hand, but it wasn’t to be.
Foreigner
In one of the more disappointing reunions of the night, Sammy Hagar took the stage to induct the band that has been a FM radio staple since its beginnings in the mid-1970’s, but no original member of the band has played live since last year on their extended farewell tour, now basically ending their five-decade run as a “ghost band”.
The always popular, though maybe not critically acclaimed band has as many Top 10 hits as Fleetwood Mac (and more than Journey) ten multi-Platinum albums, and over 80 million in unit sales.
Band leader Mick Jones has retired from performing due to heart and his Parkinson’s disease issues that were enough to prevent him from attending, and original drummer Dennis Elliott passed on appearing, due to him getting advance word of the band’s limited time and the fact that the original members including singer Lou Gramm, bassist Rick Willis and keyboardist Al Greenwood, were all in attendance (all last reuniting on stage for shows in 2018), but were not scheduled to perform together as part of their hits medley.
So, the songs were instead left to Slash, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and singer Demi Lovato to adequately cover “Feels Like the First Time.” and Hagar growling and missing a few lyrics on “Hot Blooded”, sharing the mic with current Foreigner vocalist Kelly Hansen.
Kelly Clarkson sounded gospel-like and divine on “I Want To Know What Love Is” but it just wasn’t the song we all know and love, until she introduced singer Lou Gramm (who left the band for good twenty years ago) to come out to finish the duet, leaving the higher notes to Clarkson, but still sounding potent and distinct.
Peter Frampton
Roger Daltrey, vocalist from The Who, took to the stage for an amusing and somewhat off the cuff speech to honor his friend Frampton, still frail from the muscle-weakening myositis he’s suffered since 2015. Apparently, while it’s affected his lower half and mobility, his hands are less weakened, and the result is that he continues to do limited touring after thinking he could no longer do so.
The performance somewhat inexplicably started with a 1974 deep cut “Baby (Somethin’s Happening)” (which next to no one in the arena could recognize), but the song choice made more sense as a seated Frampton clearly enjoyed playing it. An unassuming Keith Urban joined him on a nearby stool, mostly head down and consumed in the notes and riffs.
The crowd lit up for Frampton’s signature epic, 1973’s “Do You Feel Like We Do” especially during the musical tet-a-tet of his talkbox vocals versus his formidable strumming, which found him restlessly jamming from his seated position.
Jimmy Buffett
Dave Matthews seemed visibly nervous as he took to the stage solo for a hushed performance of “A Pirate Looks at 40”, its sparse arrangement showcasing Buffett’s skill as a populist songwriter.
James Taylor then took the stage to offer a few words in tribute and was then joined by some of the late musician’s Coral Reefer Band (including songwriter/producer Mac McAnally) and Kenny Chesney for a harmonic “Come Monday.”
A Tribe Called Quest
Comedian Dave Chappelle was the unannounced presenter to induct ATCQ, helping connect the dots of their musical influence called the Native Tongues, which includes the likes of De La Soul, The Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Black Sheep, and more.
That was followed by a noticeably overlong acceptance speech from Q-Tip (who sadly didn’t perform, nor did Jarobi White, while member Ali Shaheed Muhammad chose not to attend) whose lull was broken by an entering Queen Latifah asking the most obvious hip-hop question, “Can I Kick It?”
The Roots’ Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter took the lead for a thumping “Check the Rhyme” and Common appeared front and center on “Bonita Applebum”, the end transitioning to heavier beats to correspond with the larger-than-life appearance of Busta Rhymes on their 1992 collaborative classic, “Scenario.”
Mary J Blige
At last year’s ceremony, Missy Elliott surprisingly overflowed with gratitude for her induction, and this year, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul seemed as much, or more overcome with the honor. Not what you might expect from hip-hop and R&B stars, but it shows the magnitude and respect the Hall typically commands.
Blige has been a musical force since the early '90s (after being discovered helped by a demo she cut via a NY shopping mall’s karaoke machine) and has won nine Grammy Awards, and counting.
She released her debut album, "What's the 411?" in 1992 and in 2018 became the first person to earn an Oscar nomination for acting and for best original song in the same year for "Mudbound” and few work harder for their craft than Blige.
With her face mostly hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, Blige was joined by newer singers Ella Mai and Lucky Daye for a medley which stretched over her two-plus decades of releases and a re-affirmation on why she has all of the accolades she’s earned.
Ozzy Osbourne
The Godfather of Heavy Metal and Prince of Darkness is having another career high, having won Grammy Awards in 2023 for "Best Rock Album" and "Best Metal Performance" for his most recent album, Patient Number 9 (via Epic Records) and gaining his second Hall induction for his solo work, which follows the Black Sabbath induction in 2006.
Actor and Tenacious D singer Jack Black delivered the induction speech in his maniacal super fan style, with Osbourne perched on a custom bat-shaped throne chair watching alongside his also-famous family members, taking the mic for the starting gun words of “All aboard!!” and a mad laugh, to start the all-star medley with familiar solo hit, “Crazy Train.”
RHCP’s Chad Smith returned on drums, joined by Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, brightly visible to all (for a change) and dressed in a professional black suit, on vocals, and Wolfgang Van Halen on guitar, not bass, to interpret Randy Rhoads’ original crunching riffs and an impressively played solo. They were joined by guitarist/producer Andrew Watt and Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo for a truly mega supergroup.
Osbourne’s longtime and current guitarist Zakk Wylde strummed acoustic guitar to introduce “Mama I’m Coming Home” with vocals by a very suitable Jelly Roll. Wylde next drifted close to the dining tables up front to play the intro riff to “No More Tears” as the ageless Billy Idol sneered the verses alongside his veteran guitar wingman Steve Stevens.
Dave Matthews Band
Second time was the charm for DMB, having won the fan vote in 2019, but not garnering enough overall votes for induction, but 2024’s fan vote winner this time did have enough of the needed votes.
Actress Julia Roberts, who spoke of the band’s improvisation and ability to constantly play the songs in a different way, was excited enough to induct the band that she spit her gum as she spoke mid-speech, and so many of the band’s loyal fans had traveled from long distances to witness their ascension to rock immortality.
Their short set consisted of four of arguably their biggest commercial hits, with Matthews commenting following that they were ”swimming in very deep water” being in the same company as the other nominees.
Matthews also acknowledged ex-member, violinist Boyd Tinsley, absent likely due to some ongoing outside litigation issues, saying” we hope you are finding the happiness you seek.”
And, determined to reward their fans and those that had stayed for the show’s full duration, Matthews and band gave the crowd one last burst of “going away music” with their impactful cover of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House,” played by DMB for the first time since 2018.
| Dua Lipa |
| |
|
|
| John C ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥X / twitter.com ♥ bsky.ap |
Recent Comments