Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 28, 2024

Chicago has been reasonably well served in the high definition era, with both/either hi res audio and/or concert performance releases of titles like Chicago: Quadio, Chicago IX: Chicago's Greatest Hits '69-'74, Chicago in Chicago, Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire: Live at the Greek Theatre and Chicago: The Terry Kath Experience. That variety of releases may indicate in and of itself just how long lived and productive Chicago's music making has been, something that's reinforced in the title of this release with the perhaps gobsmacking branding of "55", referring to the April 1969 release of the first Chicago album, which fans of course will know offered the first version of the band's name, Chicago Transit Authority. This concert maybe hedges its "Boomer bets" by attempting to broaden the potential customer demographic with a bunch of "friends" like Robin Thicke and Chris Daughtry among others who contribute to various tunes, all of whom give probably patently unnecessary "what Chicago means to me" introductions as the ostensible "documentary' side of this concert performance rears its questionable head. While there is the notable absence of the late Terry Kath and former lead vocalist Peter Cetera, there are still a number of "veterans" still on tap, including Robert Lamm, Lee Loughane and James Pankow.

The longevity of Chicago is also indicated by the Decades Rock Live branding of this concert, something that kind of hilariously got its start back when VH1 was a thing and played actual music videos, including a bunch of course by Chicago. Chicago and its erstwhile members were also regulars on VH1's sister station, MTV, and I still remember Mark Goodman introducing a solo Peter Cetera video where he somewhat hilariously referred to Cetera as "Danger Man", since the video offered Cetera as a supposed spy, but where the subtext seemed to be a bit on the pejorative side. The "decades" idea actually plays specifically into this concert, as an early interstitial introduction by James Pankow mentions, with the band traipsing through their, well, decades of recorded material from the first album up to the current day.

The disc offers the following track list:

1. Introduction
2. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
3. Beginnings
4. Questions 67 and 68
5. Listen (with Robert Randolph)
6. South California Purples (Short Version) (with Steve Vai)
7. Poem 58 (with Steve Vai)
8. I’m A Man (with Chris Daughtry & Robert Randolph)
9. Dialogue Part 1 and 2 (with Robert Randolph)
10. Call On Me (with Robin Thicke)
11. (I've Been) Searchin' So Long
12. Mongonucleosis
13. Street Player
14. Make Me Smile (with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram)
15. Colour My World (with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram)
16. Now More Than Ever (‘Smile’ Reprise) (with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram)
17. Alive Again (with Judith Hill)
18. Old Days
19. Hard Habit To Break (with Chris Daughtry)
20. Wishing You Were Here (with VoicePlay)
21. Happy Man (with VoicePlay)
22. If You Leave Me Now (with VoicePlay)
23. Look Away (with VoicePlay)
24. Just You ‘N’ Me
25. Hard To Say I’m Sorry / Getaway
26. In The Country (with Robert Randolph)
27. Saturday In The Park (with Robin Thicke)
28. Free
29. You’re The Inspiration (with Judith Hill)
30. Feelin’ Stronger Every Day (with Judith Hill)
31. 25 or 6 to 4 (with all guest artists)

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from Mercury Studios' standalone Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 1080 release. This release does not include a 1080 presentation, and so the 2K video score above has been intentionally left blank.

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Mercury Studios with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 1.78:1. This is another 4K release from Mercury Studios that kind of questionably does not offer HDR, and so potential consumers may well be left with an understandable "why?", since frankly uptick in detail is probably subliminal a lot of the time. That said, this version reproduces if maybe doesn't exactly noticeably improve the nice detail levels already evident in Mercury's standalone 1080 presentation, and the palette is also very nicely suffused throughout, though the absence of any kind of HDR means it like the detail levels is largely identical to the 1080 presentation. The progressive presentation probably offers some smoothing of combing artifacts, something that may be more noticeable than usual because there are an incredible number of cutaways to drummer Wally Reyes, Jr.

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

If Mercury arguably misses the boat a bit in the video department on this release, at least when comparing any ostensible "differences" to their standalone 1080 release, they do offer a Dolby Atmos track on this disc, in addition to the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options that are available on the 1080 disc. This is a rather interesting Atmos track, especially if you like to toggle between codecs. It's definitely more spacious than the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, but it sure sounds to me like it's weighted more to the front channels than the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, which may slightly deplete any perceived "surround" activity. Still, both of the surround tracks offers nicely immersive listening experiences, and a particular bugaboo of mine, namely vocals that are mixed too far down, is commendably nowhere in evidence here.

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (HD; 11:05) features snippets with Chicago, Chris Duaghtry, Steve Vai and Robert Randolph, Voiceplay, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Judith Hill and Robin Thicke. These are all authored together, but the menu allows you to start with any given interview subject (though the supplement will continue to play past the person chosen, if there's anybody after).

An insert booklet containing quite a few photos is also included.

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While the three original members are surprisingly spry for their age, there is some occasional wobbliness in the band as a whole in terms of both instrumental and vocal offerings on tap, but on the whole, this is a fantastically winning concert (and a rather long one at that). Mileage may vary for many in terms of the special guests, though the a cappella sequence with Voiceplay is exceptional. This 4K release offers no HDR, which may strike videophiles as disappointing, and it does not include the 2 CDs that come with the 1080 release, but it does offer a Dolby Atmos track that is not available on the 1080 release. With caveats noted, at least for those who want to hear the Atmos audio, Recommended.