OH HALL YEAH!
Rock’s induction ceremony a big party on small screen
This year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony — like all those before it — had a mind of its own.
That’s according to Joel Peresman, CEO of the Hall of Fame. But fans don’t have to take his word for it.
They can see the ceremony, or a modestly edited version, Saturday, May 5 at 8 p.m. on HBO.
“Getting Howard Stern to agree to travel to Cleveland,” where the show is taped, so he could induct the band Bon Jovi, was one of the coups this year, Peresman jokes.
Spoiler alert: Families may want to cover the children’s ears for Stern’s speech.
An unusual feature this year includes the British band Dire Straits inducting itself. After frontman Mark Knopfler decided not to show up — joining an intrepid band of Hall snubbers that includes Axl Rose, the late David Bowie and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols — the rest of the band did it alone.
Then there’s the unexpected sight of Ann Wilson from Heart inducting the Moody Blues — a band that, like Bon Jovi, was drumming its fingers for years before they got the phone call.
“Ann was having dinner with a person on one of our committees,” Peresman explains, “and she just started talking about how much the Moody Blues meant to her while she was growing up.
“It was totally out of left field. But that’s what the Hall of Fame is about, how much artists meant to you.”
Besides the Moodys, Bon Jovi and Dire Straits, this year’s honorees include The Cars, who were inducted by Brandon Flowers of the Killers; Nina Simone, inducted by Mary J. Blige; and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who was inducted by Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes as an “Early Influence.”
Steven Van Zandt (right) also pops in to announce the institution’s latest honor: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Singles. The first six include “The Twist” by Chubby Checker, “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf and “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by
Procol Harum.
The annual induction dinner, which is the Hall’s chief fund-raiser and its highest profile event, always runs long. As a result, says Peresman, who’s also an executive producer, the three weeks between the April 14 live event and the telecast were both necessary and valuable.
“We do a lot of planning,” he says. “But once the event starts, there isn’t much we can do. It takes its own course. So for the TV special we can decide which songs worked best, which speeches ran a little too long. We sweeten some of the music. Fix it in the mix, as they say.” The time lag before the telecast “also means we get double exposure,” he says. “People cover the live ceremony, and we stay on their minds until the HBO show.” Televising the show, says Peresman, is one of the best decisions the Hall ever made. For many years, starting with the first induction ceremony in 1986, the event was filmed, but not telecast. A number of music biz people, including the likes of Neil Young, liked that, wanting to keep it “a family gathering.”
But TV money and promotion eventually proved too tempting, and in 2009 telecast rights were sold to Fuse. In 2012 those rights moved to HBO. The induction was also moved from the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria in Midtown to arenas.
“The issue (of televising the ceremony) was, ‘Will we lose the essence of what it is?’” Peresman says. “But the opposite happened. When you sell 10,000 seats to fans at the Barclays Center (where last year’s event was held), they bring an energy that was missing.
“Now it’s more like a concert — and live music has always been what rock ’n’ roll is about.”