Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

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

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Mercury Studios with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is a really appealing looking presentation for the most part, one helped by nicely fulsome stage lighting which helps to support some great detail levels, especially in close-ups of the guys downstage in particular. Frequent (as in almost obsessively so) cutaways to drummer Walfredo Reyes, Jr. are sometimes bathed in a kind of purple tone which can look slightly noisy. The upstage backdrop of projections offers some surprisingly crisp detailing as well. The palette is very nicely suffused and natural looking. The interlaced presentation can definitely reveal some combing artifacts in fast moving objects like drumsticks or hands strumming guitars.

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

This 1080 release offers DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options (note that Mercury's Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 4K release sports an Atmos track, though it does not include the bonus CDs this release offers). The surround track is nicely spacious with clear engagement of the side and rear channels, though vocals in particular tend to be weighted toward the front. The mix is excellent in my opinion, with vocals clearly predominating though never overshadowing the instrumental forces. Fidelity is excellent and there's actually some surprising dynamic range.

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 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).

Additionally, unlike Mercury's 4K release of this title, this version offers 2 Bonus CDs, with the following track lists:

CD 1:

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. Make Me Smile (with Christone "Kingfish" Ingram)
14. Colour My World (with Christone "Kingfish" Ingram)
15. Now More Than Ever ('Smile' Reprise) (with Christone "Kingfish" Ingram)

CD 2:

1. Street Player
2. Alive Again (with Judith Hill)
3. Old Days
4. Hard Habit To Break (with Chris Daughtry)
5. Wishing You Were Here (with VoicePlay)
6. Happy Man (with VoicePlay)
7. If You Leave Me Now (with VoicePlay)
8. Look Away (with VoicePlay)
9. Just You 'N' Me
10. Hard To Say I'm Sorry / Getaway
11. In The Country (with Robert Randolph)
12. Saturday In The Park (with Robin Thicke)
13. Free
14. You're The Inspiration (with Judith Hill)
15. Feelin' Stronger Every Day (with Judith Hill)
16. 25 or 6 to 4 (with all guest artists)

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

Chicago & Friends: Live at 55 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. Mercury's odd decision to offer a 4K release with out HDR but with Dolby Atmos audio, and this release without Dolby Atmos but two bonus CDs may bother some potential consumers, but taken on its own merits, this 1080 release comes Recommended.