The 5 Greatest Performances In Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame History

The history of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame gets a bit richer every year, with an induction ceremony honoring new inductees. Those greats of rock, pop, country, and more get celebrated by their peers in a lengthy event that's one part television awards show, and one part multi-act, surprise-packed concert spectacular. Since the Hall started celebrating musical legends in the 1980s, every ceremony has allowed the new members of the club to perform a few of the songs that got them there, or to play alongside other rock stars, or to observe one-night-only supergroups do the hits. Some of those Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performances became legendary.

Here are some of the best musical moments from past Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies, more often than not featuring unexpected and affecting musician pairings. These explosive performances from Prince and Tom Petty, Nirvana and Joan Jett, U2 and Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M. and Patti Smith, and the Cure are almost worthy of enshrinement themselves.

When Nirvana was welcomed into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, it was a satisfying but sad moment for both fans and the surviving members of the band that kicked off the grunge rock movement of the 1990s. Nirvana broke up after the tragic death of Kurt Cobain in 1994. "This, for me, is a bittersweet notion as we all miss Kurt so much," bassist Krist Novoselic wrote on his blog (via Musicfeeds). "But considering we were inducted, the show had to go on." With an eye toward Cobain's oft-stated feminist views, Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl decided to perform as Nirvana for the ceremony with a series of female rock stars, both ultra-famous and on the rise.

In a set of deeply moving and extremely rocking presentations, Nirvana played their favorite songs and biggest hits behind four commanding presences. St. Vincent handled "Lithium," Lorde took on "All Apologies," and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth did "Aneurysm." But Novoselic's first, no-brainer guest that he asked, Joan Jett, got the best gig of all. She ferociously worked her way through Nirvana's breakthrough hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

U2 learned a lot about how to make earnest, stadium-filling rock from Bruce Springsteen, both a contemporary and predecessor of the band that was one of the biggest of the 1980s. In 2005, the Irish group and the American singer-songwriter convened on the stage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction event. U2 was an honoree that night, but front man Bono somewhat turned it into a celebration of Springsteen.

During U2's performance segment, guitarist The Edge began quietly, slowly, and deliberately playing the opening from their searching and spiritual "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Then Bono delivered a spoken intro where he proclaimed his appreciation. "Thank you to Bruce Springsteen. When I say that America is not just a country but an idea, I'm thinking about people like Bruce Springsteen," he explained. The music picked up, and U2 performed a slightly slowed-down, stripped-down, and soulful version of their 1987 hit. "I'm looking for the Boss," Bono quipped, bringing "the Boss," to the stage. A visibly thrilled Springsteen took a few lines of a verse as Bono looked on adoringly. Then the song built into something grand and epic as the singers duetted, only for the sounds to reduce again to showcase Springsteen's emotional vocals.

A frequently respected Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony moment is the all-star jam session, in which many or all of the performers, honorees, and inductors take the stage to form a massive temporary supergroup and play a beloved rock tune. In 2004, such a conglomeration came together to play "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the Beatles song contributed by George Harrison, joining the Hall as a solo act more than two years after he died. Two of Harrison's Traveling Wilburys cohort were on hand — Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra and Tom Petty. The one-shot band also involved Lynne's guitarist Marc Mann, keyboardist Steve Winwood of the also newly-inducted Traffic, and Harrison's son, acoustic guitar player Dhani Harrison. Ceremony producer and director Joel Gallen personally lobbied to include one more just-enshrined artist in the melee: Prince.

The classic rock mega-band performed a tremendous and faithful cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," highlighted by Mann's re-creation of Eric Clapton's solo as heard on the original recording. Then Prince sauntered to the front of the stage — he'd been performing the whole time, virtually unseen — and took over the next solos. While Prince was widely acclaimed for his singing, dancing, and songwriting, he was underrated as a guitarist. But at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame he proved he was one of the greatest to ever pick up the instrument, absolutely shredding and wailing in a transcendent reinvention of Harrison's song. The delight on Dhani Harrison's face speaks volumes.

Among the handful of the newly voted-in members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007: jangly alternative rock pioneers R.E.M. and punk icon Patti Smith. R.E.M. members Michael Stipe and Mike Mills were elated that they got to enter the Hall at the same time as Smith, a figure they cited as an influence. When R.E.M. got the chance to perform at the ceremony that took place at New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, they embraced the moment by welcoming back founding drummer Bill Berry, who'd exited the group in 1997.

After playing three of their own songs, R.E.M. brought another surprise guest onto the stage: Smith. But rather than have Stipe and Smith duet on an R.E.M. hit or a well-known Smith piece, they joined forces to pay tribute to a mutual favorite, and one that wouldn't enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for another few years: punk pioneers the Stooges. R.E.M., primarily known for their clean and unobtrusive acoustic-driven guitar rock, showed that they could get heavier if the moment required it. With Stipe and Smith trading vocal passages and singing together, the band delivered a droning, fuzzed out, loud rendition of the Stooges' classic "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Not only did the singers' love of the song come out, but the performance highlighted the elements of the Stooges that obviously led to the music of two of that night's inductees.

With their overdue induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, the Cure showed that the institution was ready to acknowledge the wave of moody alternative rock bands from the U.K. who came to prominence in the 1980s. The Cure, synonymous with band founder and leader Robert Smith, towered over its cohort, and became known as one of the mopiest, dreariest bands of all time. But when the modern iteration performed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the often tragedy-laden Cure dispelled the notion that they were forever forlorn bummers, delivering a triumphant performance bursting with appreciation and joy.

After a reverent Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails officially inducted them, the Cure took the stage for a 20-minute-plus set that included 1984 deep cut "Shake Dog Shake," fan favorite "A Forest," and greatest hits like "Lovesong" and "Just Like Heaven." Smith wailed his way through every tune, showing that he hadn't lost any of his vocal abilities since the Cure started out more than 40 years prior. Then, after uncharacteristically smiling and joking around with the audience, Smith took fans all the way back to the start with an encore, enthusiastically tearing through the sparse and bouncy 1979 sadness anthem "Boys Don't Cry."