Hall Grown Up

Television may not have been the only culprit. If the earlier shows were celebrations of the music's fountain-of-youth quality, this year's felt like a boomer recovery meeting. Hall cofounder and Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner began the evening with a solemn speech that cited "years of great success and excess." He was referring to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, but his words, spoken with equal doses of admonishment and pride, hung in the air like the video cameras swooping above the audience. Earplugs were available; Joe Walsh's manager searched for nonalcoholic drinks for his party's table. "We really do look like the people our parents warned us against," cracked Eagles inductor Jimmy Buffett, glancing around the tuxedo-clad crowd (which, as always, made the event feel like a Dow Industrial sales convention). Other times, the age reminders weren't so amusing, as when former junkie John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas hobbled up to the podium with a cane, and then carefully, painfully, took a seat on stage to perform with the reunited trio.

The morning-after ennui wasn't simply a function of age or attendance (900, down from 1,100 two years ago at the Waldorf). At one point, the crowd was shown an assemblage of clips from past Hall dinners. Seeing footage of Mick Jagger duetting with Tina Turner, for instance, only reinforced the Hall's (and Rolling Stone's) concept that rockers of the '60s were not merely musical revolutionaries but almighty deities — and that every post-Woodstock inductee is comparatively unworthy, even if they aren't.

Still, the organizers will be able to add a few moments from this year's ceremony onto a future videotape. They should skip the Mac and Eagles sets, which were rote replays of their reunion tours, and Jonny Lang's strained version of Vincent's "Be-Bop-a-Lula." But the tape must include the original Santana lineup's fiery "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen," as well as Nona Hendryx's spunky "Son of a Preacher Man," a tribute to the cancer-stricken Dusty Springfield. Thanks to Paul Shaffer and his Letterman band of expert mimics, the surviving Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" was less creaky than expected. Afterward, Phillips, briefly putting aside his feud with ex-wife and ex-Mama Michelle, took her hand as he wobbled off stage. Odds are it wasn't in the script.