Ringo Starr Inducted, Green Day Shine at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

“It’s like my record collection is actually sitting in this room,” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong said midway through his acceptance speech at the 30th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “The fact that I heard Patti Smith’s Horses as a kid, and now there you are standing there.”

Armstrong paused for a split second to take in the moment, looking out across the rows of tables that included Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Joan Jett, Stevie Wonder, Peter Wolf, Steve Van Zandt, Bill Withers, Jerry Lee Lewis and many other of his favorite artists. “I love rock & roll music,” he said. “I have from the first moment I opened my eyes and took my first breath.”

That was a common sentiment throughout the five-and-a-half hour ceremony at Cleveland’s Public Hall Saturday night (which airs May 30th on HBO), perhaps the only event that could find Miley Cyrus singing into the same mic as Green Day’s Mike Dirnt on a Beatles song while Bill Withers, McCartney, Starr, Beck, Karen O, Wonder and Dave Grohl joyously played alongside them. “A lot of different types of music are in [the Hall of Fame],” Withers said. “Miles Davis has no resemblance whatsoever to Jerry Lee Lewis. But each type of music has its own constituents and there’s a commonality.”

About 10,000 rock & roll constituents crammed into the hall and took their seats right as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame chairman and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner delivered the opening address. “It’s wonderful to be here; it’s certainly a thrill,” he said. “It took a lot of years and a lot of struggle to open the Hall of Fame, but we did it and this year we welcomed our 10 millionth visitor.”

Last year’s ceremony wrapped up with Joan Jett fronting Nirvana, and this year, Grohl returned the favor by joining the punk pioneer at her own set. She kicked off the night with a smoldering “Bad Reputation” before Grohl came onstage for “Cherry Bomb,” the signature song by Jett’s 1970s punk band the Runaways. “A friend of mine is here,” she said. “He wrote one of my biggest hits.” With that, Tommy James came out to join her for “Crimson and Clover” alongside Cyrus, who then walked to the podium to formally induct Jett.

“I’m gonna start off this induction with the first time I wanted to have sex with Joan Jett,” Cyrus said, recounting the time they smoked pot in a hotel bathroom before appearing on Oprah together. “To me, she is what Superwoman should be. She’s had a life in music that is rare. She’s been the first in many things, not just as a woman but just as a badass babe on the planet.”

Jett was inducted with the classic lineup of her band the Blackhearts, and she stepped up to the podium after they all had a chance to speak. “I was going to try and not cry,” she said. “But that’s going to be tough. . .I come from a place where rock & roll means something. It means more than music, more than fashion, more than a good pose. It’s a language of a subculture that makes eternal teenagers out of all who follow it. It’s a subculture of rebellion, integrity, frustration, alienation and the glue that set several generations free of unnatural societal and self-suppression.”