Tonight is the night that Outkast, Cyndi Lauper, the White Stripes, Soundgarden, Bad Company, and more take their place among the all-time greats at the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Will this year’s ceremony last longer than five hours? As always, it could go either way.
Read more about these inductees at rockhall.com.
8:00 pm: Stevie Wonder appears immediately as the show opens! He’s leading an all-star group of surprise guests who hadn’t been announced in advance, including Jennifer Hudson, Maxwell, Beck, Flea, and Questlove.
They perform a handful of Sly & the Family Stone hits. It’s a cool tribute, but it makes us think that neither Outkast nor the White Stripes will be performing tonight. Because normally the show opens with a performance from one of the inductees.
But why is someone other than Stevie Wonder playing harmonica? That used to be his trademark!
8:10 pm: Mick Fleetwood is here to induct Bad Company. Mick’s maroon velvet blazer is stealing the show.
Here comes the Bad Company video package. The video packages are one of my favorite parts of the ceremony. They’re like mini Behind the Music episodes.
“Paul Rodgers has got soul you can’t learn,” says Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott. Brian May also praises the band. Rodgers is featured extensively in the package, which is nice, since he can’t be here tonight due to health issues.
8:19 pm: The tribute performance to Bad Company features Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, and two famous Rock Hall snubs — Bryan Adams and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes.
Adams will probably get inducted next year, since that’s often how it works. You show up one year at the ceremony, you get inducted very soon after (see Peter Frampton, Cyndi Lauper.)
Robinson sings “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and Adams delivers a performance of “Can’t Get Enough.”
“I’ve never played ‘Can’t Get Enough’ in a tuxedo,” says Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, who performed with Adams and Robinson. Kirke is the only member of the group to appear in person. Rodgers appears on video to accept.
8:35 pm: “The reason that you know Missy Elliott’s name is because of Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella,” Elliott says as she inducts Salt N Pepa.
Salt N Pepa are performing live! Our first performer induction of the evening. The energy level shoots way up as they run through “Shoop” and “Let’s Talk about Sex.”
En Vogue, another group that deserves to be in the Rock Hall discussion, joins the group for “Whatta Man.”
Salt N Pepa finish with their signature song “Push It,” one of the best songs of the 1980s, with a brief appearance from Kid N Play. Who ever thought we’d see Kid N Play on the Rock Hall stage?
“This is for every woman who picked up a mic when they told her she couldn’t. For every sister who had to fight twice as hard to be heard.”
Salt mentions that the group is still in a battle to own their masters, calling out the labels that are still fighting with them after all these years.
8:58 pm: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards compliment the late Nicky Hopkins. His induction package show footage of him in the studio with John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, and other greats.
This was a great way for folks who aren’t familiar with Nicky’s extensive body of work to become familiar with his musical achievements.
9:02 pm: David Letterman is here! He delivers the speech for his friend Warren Zevon, who gets inducted posthumously. He reminds us of Zevon’s piece of advice to “enjoy every sandwich.”
Zevon was a brilliant lyricist whose storytelling and humor were a major part of his work. Seeing him finally get inducted is a great thing. Springsteen, Henley, and Jackson Browne all appear in Zevon’s video package.
Letterman loans Killers guitarist Dave Keuning the guitar that Zevon gifted him.
The Killers play the tribute to Zevon, singing “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” accentuating it with a few “ah-hoo” bursts to give a nod to “Werewolves of London.”
9:24 pm: Musical Excellence inductee Thom Bell is honored with a video segment featuring big names like Elton John, Daryl Hall, and Jimmy Jam.
Bell had such a massive influence on the sound of Philly soul and of pop music in general. He deserves more than a 3-minute segment. But it seems clear the Hall is racing through the Musical Excellence inductees this year to keep the show moving.
9:27 pm: Iggy Pop is here to induct the White Stripes. He says, “The first time I saw them it was in a photograph. It was just the two of them standing side by side grinning, like they had some kind of fun secret.”
So Meg isn’t here, sadly. At least Jack is going with the classic red, white, and black White Stripes color scheme. “My sister thanks you, and I thank you,” he says to finish the speech.
Olivia Rodrigo and Feist begin the tribute performance with an acoustic version of one of the White Stripes’ quietest songs, “We’re Going to be Friends.”
Twenty One Pilots follow with “Seven Nation Army.” It would’ve been so much better if Jack and Meg were the ones playing this classic, but oh well. They deliver an appropriately weird version of the song.
9:54 pm: The quick video package for Lenny Waronker plays. It’s generally hard to get excited about record company executives, but Mike Mills, Randy Newman, and Paul Simon offer their praise. Waronker gives a speech on video.
9:59 pm: Donald Glover takes the stage to induct Outkast. “It was a sound that honestly had no place in the mainstream rap landscape at the time,” he says of the early music that the duo released. “Outkast made it possible to imagine experimenting on the biggest stage.”
Glover’s speech was one of the best of the night. He concluded by calling Outkast “two visionaries who turned their differences into a dynasty.”
Big Boi and Andre 3000 are both here and accept their awards with a few dozen friends and collaborators. “Great things start in little rooms,” Andre says, recalling the Dungeon where they recorded their early music.
10:21 pm: Big Boi opens the performance. Doja Cat comes out to sing Andre’s part in “Ms. Jackson,” so evidently Andre won’t be joining the performance. Doja doesn’t even remember the words to the hook. You had one job, girl!
Tyler the Creator comes out for “B.O.B.” That lightning-fast track is perfect for his manic energy. Janelle Monae does her best Andre 3000 imitation on “Hey Ya!,” gyrating wildly and wandering into the crowd.
Outkast’s famous collaborators join the group as well — Sleepy Brown on “The Way You Move” and Killer Mike on “The Whole World.”
Apparently, Andre just doesn’t feel like going back to the hip hop life right now. That Outkast reunion will have to wait until another day.
10:32 pm: Jim Carrey brings even more star power to the ceremony. He inducts Soundgarden, calling them “one of the most majestic, powerful, and influential bands ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
Soundgarden get a long performance slot and they deliver one of the heaviest Rock Hall performances in recent memory. Taylor Momsen joins Soundgarden for a heavy performance of “Rusty Cage,” followed by Brandi Carlile belting out a powerful “Black Hole Sun.”
11:05 pm: Soundgarden’s Hiro Yamamoto gets huge applause when he mentions that his parents were in Japanese camps in the U.S. during World War II and says, “Let’s never do that again,” alluding to the current rounding up of immigrants.
Chris Cornell’s daughter Toni then performs an understated rendition of “Fell on Black Days” with Nancy Wilson.
11:15 pm: After the In Memoriam segment, which seems especially lengthy since we lost so many legends this year, Elton John sings “God Only Knows” to honor Brian Wilson.
Tribute performances like this, and the one that opened the show for Sly Stone could become a bigger part of Rock Hall ceremonies in the future. They are a cool way to honor the folks who have passed on, while adding additional star power to the ceremony.
11:20 pm: The Carol Kaye video package educates viewers about her incredible history of playing bass for icons like Elvis Presley, the Monkees, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, and the Beach Boys.
11:24 pm: Wearing the most incredible headpiece, Chappell Roan inducts Cyndi Lauper. “She’s a born performer and a revolutionary songwriter,” Roan says. “From the very beginning, she owned every ounce of who she was.”
Lauper opens with “True Colors,” singing in front of the pride flag. She stops the song for several seconds after singing the line “So don’t be afraid” to let the line sink in.
Next comes “Time After Time.” Lauper sings it as a duet with British crooner Raye. That seems like a bit of an odd pairing, but they duet nicely.
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was the obvious closer, but what we didn’t see coming was Avril Lavigne and Salt N Pepa coming out to sing it with Lauper.
This feels like a song they might have used as a show closer at previous Rock Hall ceremonies. Imagine every female artist in the building coming out for a rousing final number. How amazing would that have been?
11:54 pm: Oh, right. Chubby Checker is getting in tonight. Despite fighting for decades to get inducted, he decided to skip the ceremony.
12:00 am: It’s midnight and we’re not done yet. The late Joe Cocker still has to get honored. Bryan Adams is here to do the honors, making his second appearance of the night (now he’s definitely getting inducted next year!)
Adams said of Cocker, “It’s one thing to cover a song, but it’s another to make it your own. And that’s what Joe could do.” The Tedeschi Trucks Band, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Teddy Swims deliver the tribute performance for Joe.
Then Bryan Adams, Chris Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, and others come out for the final group singalong of “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
Have any of these artists ever met before? Are they friends at all? Eh, no matter. The singalong finale is a long tradition of the Rock Hall, so it’s nice whenever they can get enough artists willing to do it. That was a long show, but it had a lot of highlights.
What were your favorite moments from the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony?
Last Updated on November 10, 2025