Emotions high at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony

LOS ANGELES (AP):

Cyndi Lauper turned True Colours into a defiant call for courage and the music of Outkast, Soundgarden and the White Stripes brought waves of emotion Saturday night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Partway through the song, Lauper shouted the line “don’t be afraid!”, thrust her fist in the air and kept it there as the music stopped for a long and dramatic stretch.

She was then joined by Raye to sing Time After Time and Avril Lavigne for Girls Just Want to Have Fun, backed by an all-female band. As Lauper called for the ladies to sing with her, Salt-N-Pepa came dancing out and joined her.

Chappell Roan inducted Lauper, who said in her acceptance speech, “I know that I stand on the shoulders of the women in the industry that came before me. And my shoulders are broad enough to have the women that came after me stand on mine.”

The power of women in music was called out loudly earlier in the evening at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles during the induction of Salt-N-Pepa.

“This is for every woman who picked up a mic when they told her she couldn’t,” Cheryl ‘Salt’ James said in a rousing speech accepting her, Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton and DJ Spinderella’s entrance into the hall.

James brought up their fight to reclaim their master recordings from Universal Music Group and apologised to the fans who “got in trouble for cutting their hair like us”.

Outkast didn’t perform together, but the duo stood together on stage, surrounded by a crew of friends and cohorts as they gave grateful speeches.

Andre 3000 gave a long, rambling funny speech that ended in tears when he talked about their very beginnings in a basement “dungeon” in Atlanta in the early 1990s.

Emotions ran deep during Soundgarden’s segment of the night, starting with the induction speech of Jim Carrey, the actor and Soundgarden superfan who seemed to be fighting off tears throughout as he talked about Cornell, who died from suicide in 2017.

Each of his bandmates paid their own tearful tributes. Bassist Hiro Yamamoto was among the few who brought up the politics from the stage.

“Thanks to my parents, whose story is American citizens who are rounded up and placed into prison camps just for being Japanese during World War II,” Yamamoto said to some of the biggest cheers of the night. “Well, that affected my life greatly, and it really echoes strongly today. Let’s not add another story like this to our history.”

The White Stripes induction was among the highlights of the night. Twenty One Pilots brought the house down with a version of Seven Nation Army and Olivia Rodrigo and Feist delivered an acoustic version of We’re Gonna Be Friends.

Stevie Wonder led a funky and flashy tribute to the late Sly Stone to open the show that streamed live on Disney+. Wonder was joined by Questlove, Leon Thomas, Maxwell, Beck, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers for renditions of Sly and the Family Stone hits Dance to the Music, Everyday People and Thank You. Jennifer Hudson joined them to wail through Higher.

Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac inducted Bad Company, calling the British group “classic rock legends”. Other inductees who got video tributes were Chubby Checker, session bassist Carole Kaye, session piano man Nicky Hopkins, and record producer and executive Lenny Waronker.