I found it impossible to stop watching HBO’s broadcast of the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert last night (there’s an encore presentation Monday) — even though I hated myself in the morning. Okay, hate is strong. But I wasn’t loving my generation’s ceaseless celebration of itself, and I’m as guilty as the next boomer. 

Admittedly, I set myself up by watching WLIW on Saturday evening. We had just completed the stupefying drive from western Pennsylvania to Brooklyn and my entertainment bar was pretty low, low enough for Ed Sullivan’s Rock and Roll Classics — The Sixties and earlier excerpts from the RNR HOF concerts to slide under. If you could wade through the hour-plus of public television infomercial that surrounded the Sullivan performances (WLIW gives new meaning to the phrase “handful of gimme and a mouthful of much obliged”) you glimpsed a few startling live numbers: the Stones ripping “Satisfaction” out of the night air, the Animals playing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” as if the joint was on fire. By the time we got to the RNR HOF show (excerpts from concerts given over the last 25 years) I had seen the heroes of my youth grow old and, for the most part, wide. And the pledge lines were just ringing off the hook!

The anniversary show (four hours, edited down from the eight-hour-plus concert held at Madison Square Garden last month) reunited some of those same acts (Bono & Springsteen anyone?) with some surprises: Bonnie Raitt singing “Love Has No Pride” with David Crosby and Graham Nash harmonizing on the chorus; Metallica paying homage to Lou Reed on “Sweet Jane.” 

But many of the best moments came when youth was added to the mix. Fergie, singing the Merry Clayton part, helped Mick revitalize “Gimme Shelter,” while Jeff Beck’s phenomenal young bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld, makes you think they won’t have to put all this music in a museum after all. 

I like looking in the rearview mirror as much as the next person: Crosby, Stills & Nash was the first real concert I saw (in 1969!) and I’m glad to see them all alive. (It was touch and go for at least two of them, for years.) But do I really need to hear “Almost Cut My Hair” ever again? And where the hell was Neil Young? He wrestled with the question of growing old with rock and roll long before his contemporaries on songs like “Hey Hey, My My” — which is maybe why you seldom see him at these things. Rust never sleeps, you see.