ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME IN CONCERT: ENCORE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

It's a well-known fact that many of us worship rock stars.  Even rock stars worship other rock stars, and one of their favorite activities seems to be getting together in huge gatherings in order to worship, entertain, and bore each other.

The "entertaining" part is what makes Time-Life's new 2-disc Blu-ray set ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME IN CONCERT: ENCORE worth watching if you happen to like some of the many stars on hand to perform during the four separate induction ceremonies (2010-2013) that it documents.

The "worship" part gets a bit cloying at times as those chosen to induct certain stars into the hallowed hall tend to gush at length over the seemingly godlike objects of their slavering admiration.

That's also where the "boring" part comes in and hits hard--these people are musicians, not speakers, and their amateur efforts to wax both humorous and profound are the stuff fast-forward buttons were made for.

The same goes, unfortunately, for many of those artists' sleep-inducing and sometimes self-important acceptance speeches.  The best one, in fact, is given by lead guitarist Alex Lifeson of Rush, whose entire speech consists solely of the words "blah, blah, blah" expressed with varied emphasis and intonation, which serves not only to liven things up a bit but also to spoof the overall dullness of the event's endless speechifying.

Naturally, your interest in said speeches will vary with your degree of devotion to each particular musician.  What really counts, however, is the musical performances by the inductees themselves or by other artists' covering their most popular songs.

This 2-disc set is jam-packed with musical performances which should have fans rocking and rolling Hall-of-Fame style.  I couldn't stand many of them (strictly personal tastes, of course) but the audience seemed to find them highly "entertaining."  I responded likewise to some of my old faves.

The list of inductees and musical performers includes: Rush, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donovan, Heart, Alice Cooper, John Mellencamp, The Hollies, Leon Russell, Dr. John, Iggy and the Stooges, Abba, Genesis, Phish, Paul Shaffer, Tom Waits, Darlene Love, Small Faces/Faces, Beastie Boys, Freddie King, Randy Newman, Albert King, Quincy Jones, Chris Cornell, Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins, Public Enemy, and several others.

An illustrated booklet contains the entire program for each of the four ceremonies.

Image and sound quality on the two Time-Life Blu-ray discs are fine, so your enjoyment of ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME IN CONCERT: ENCORE will depend entirely on how excited you get perusing the list of participants.  For some it should be of sporadic interest. For others, it will provide hours of pure entertainment.

Street Date: September 21, 2018
BD/DVD SRP: $39.99/$34.99