‘Ron Delsener Presents’ Is a Highly Entertaining, if Smoothed-Over, History of One of the Greatest Concert Promoters of All Time: Film Review
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Unless you’ve got a “Succession”-sized story of ludicrous wealth combined with horrible behavior, it can be very challenging for a documentarian to make the life of an executive seem exciting — even one as colorful as that of Ron Delsener, one of the greatest concert promoters of all time… which is what makes “Ron Delsener Presents,” a documentary on that colorful life, all the more impressive.
While the 90-odd-minute doc is a bit overlong and based largely on wealthy old music-biz veterans telling war stories from their rough-and-tumble years, director Jake Sumner uses deep research, fascinating concert and other archival footage, animation and snappy editing to create a very entertaining, if slightly smoothed-over, film that doubles as a sort of mini-history of the American concert business.
It doesn’t hurt that some of those wealthy music-biz veterans include Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Roger Daltrey, Jon Bon Jovi, Little Steven and Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss as well as salty concert-biz impresarios like Dennis Arfa, Tom Roth, Doc McGee, along with Delsener’s wife Ellin, daughter Samantha, his business-partner sister and many others.
But of course, most of the film — which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month — revolves around the man himself, now 87.
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