Brooklyn’s Barclays Center hosted quite the gathering last night for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, welcoming N.W.A, Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple and Steve Miller to the 2016 induction ceremony. The night opened with a very special tribute performance to David Bowie, which featured Talking Heads’ David Byrne, Kimbra, and The Roots, who’d backed out of performing last weekend’s Bowie tributes after a gear-sharing debacle. The musicians teamed up for a classic energy-shifter, “Fame.” Fan-shot footage is available, thanks to MarchofTheRashbaum:

Deep Purple was the first to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. The members, without guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who refused to attend with the rest of the band, accepted their induction with a three-song performance, including “Hush,” “Midnight Star,” and “Smoke On The Water.”

Watch Deep Purple perform “Smoke On The Water,” courtesy of Stephen Hurtes:

Then, Steven Van Zandt, E Street Band guitarist, honored the late singer/producer Bert Berns with an Ahmet Ertegun Award for a Lifetime Achievement, for his work in producing “Hang on Sloopy,” “Twist and Shout,” “Piece of My Heart” and “Under the Boardwalk,” as well as initiating the careers of Van Morrison and Neil Diamond.

Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney inducted Steve Miller next into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, shortly after Miller bashed the entire awards ceremony backstage during a press conference, saying “The whole process needs to be changed… It doesn’t need to be this hard. There’s nothing fancy going on out there that requires all of this stuff.” When prompted to end his rant, Miller continued, “No, we’re not going to wrap this up… Here’s what you need to know: This is how close this show came to not happening because of how the artists are being treated right now.”

The call-to-actions continued when he took the stage for his acceptance speech, explaining, “I encourage you to keep expanding your vision, to be be inclusive of women, to be more transparent in your dealings with the public and most importantly, to do much more to provide music to our schools,” before joining his band-mates for “Fly Like An Eagle,” “Rock’n Me” and “The Joker.”

You can watch Steve Miller’s complete acceptance speech below, thanks to MarchofTheRashbaum:

Steve Miller Band perform “Fly Like An Eagle”:

For reasons unknown, the legendary rap act N.W.A decided not to perform at the ceremony last night. Instead, Kendrick Lamar took the stage and inducted the group, delivering a compelling message, “The fact that a famous group can look just like one of us and dress like one of us, talk like one of us, proved to every single kid in the ghetto that you can be successful and still have importance while doing it… That was N.W.A. That was their true message.”

Dr. Dre took the acceptance speech, for perhaps the most powerful moment of the night, explaining, “There were a lot of people against us [when we started], probably because of what we were saying,” he said. “I get it. I understand. They weren’t ready for us. The name of our group alone was a shocker. Niggas with Attitudes, you feel me?”

Watch Dr. Dre’s full acceptance speech below, also thanks to MarchofTheRashbaum:

The evening also took the opportunity to honor many of the musical heroes that died over the past year with an In Memoriam montage. Grace Potter and Sheryl Crow joined together for a touching tribute to Glenn Frey with an Eagles’ cover, “New Kid In Town,” which you can watch below thanks to dgold61:

Five of the original seven members of Chicago graced the stage to accept their induction from Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas. While Peter Cetera didn’t show, Robert Lamm, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Walter Parazaider and Danny Seraphine all performed “Saturday In The Park” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” featuring Rob Thomas, and by “25 Or 6 To 4.” 

Watch “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” below:

The night’s ceremony ended with Kid Rock inducting all original members of Cheap Trick, including drummer Bun E. Carlos who showed up despite his issues with the band-members. Watch the band’s first performances together as all-original members since 2010 below:

“I Want You To Want Me”

“Dream Police”

“Surrender”

Keeping with tradition, the 2016 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony ended with an all-star jam, featuring Cheap Trick, Steven Van Zandt, Sheryl Crow, Steve Miller, Rob Thomas, Glenn Hughes, Grace Potter, David Coverdale, members of Chicago and Deep Purple, for a cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That A Shame,” also courtesy of MarchofTheRashbaum:

You can watch the full ceremony on HBO April 30th.

[via Rolling Stone]