The 34th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony took place on Friday night, 29th of March, 2019, in Brooklyn, New York’s Barclays Center, and the artists which were inducted this year were Def Leppard, The Zombies, Roxy Music, The Zombies, The Cure, Radiohead, Stevie Nicks and Janet Jackson.
Joe Elliott (vocals) spoke on behalf of Def Leppard, who were inducted by Queen’s Brian May: “Those songs we’ve written over the years were always our main priority. And although there seemed to be a looming sense of tragedy around every corner, we just wouldn’t let it in. But it’s true, it did seem that every time we made some musical headway, life would knock us back down somewhat. ‘Pyromania’ is a raging success… then Rick has a life-changing accident. He survived it and came out the other side stronger. ‘Hysteria’ gave us the global success that we’d always craved… and then we lost Steve. But we survived and came out the other side stronger people. And that’s the way it’s always played out throughout our career. So let’s face facts here, if alcoholism, car crashes and cancer couldn’t kill us, the nineties had no fucking chance”.
It’s interesting to see what songs did some of the inducted bands play at the ceremony.
Def Leppard played “Hysteria”, “Rock Of Ages”, “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, Roxy Music played “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”, “Out of the Blue”, “Love Is the Drug”, “More Than This”, “Avalon” and “Editions of You”, and The Zombies “Time of the Season”, “Tell Her No”, “She’s Not There” and “This Will Be Our Year”.
The event closed with an all-star performance of “All The Young Dudes” (David Bowie), featuring Def Leppard, Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople leader), Brian May, Steve Van Zandt, The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs and Rod Argent (The Zombies, Argent).
