Cher, the Dave Matthews Band and others are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Superstar power made an early appearance Saturday night at the 39th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cleveland, when Cher strode to the stage and joined Dua Lipa for a duet of the 1998 dance-pop smash “Believe” that revived Cher's career.

In a candid, conversational acceptance speech, Cher joked about her long wait to join (she first qualified more than three decades ago), telling the crowd at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse and those streaming the show online, “It was easy to divorce rock and roll. Two people in the Hall of Fame.” He assessed his own vocal abilities (“I'm a good singer. I'm not a great singer,” he decided, but added, “I changed the sound of music forever”), and Many of the innovations that survived were reflected in his career spanning 60 years.

“My life has been a roller coaster, and the one thing I've never done is I've never given up,” Cher, 78, said, addressing the women directly: “We've been down and out, and we keep trying, and we keep going. We live, and we build, and we are someone special.”

Perseverance was a recurring theme throughout the five-and-a-half-hour show, which also honored two mainstays of the '70s and '80s: funk and disco powerhouse Kool and the Gang and pop-rock band Foreigner. Peter Frampton, 74, who is battling the degenerative muscle disease inclusion body myositis, thanked David Bowie for rescuing him from a low point – “I had no idea what a huge gift David was giving me” – and a brief set from a chair. performed. Mary J. Blige, 53, spoke about her ups and downs (“You don't have to wait until you're perfect to feel worthy. You're worthy”) before a sterling three-song performance.

And Ozzy Osbourne, 75, who has been on hiatus from touring due to health challenges, appeared on stage in a suitably terrifying black throne adorned with skulls and bat wings to offer a short encore and perform a rendition of his de facto theme song, “Crazy Train.” . ” with a mocking exclamation of his famous intro line, “It's all for nothing!”

A cast of rockers turned out to honor Osbourne, including admirers such as Billy Idol, Jelly Roll and Tool singer Maynard James Keenan. But the most infectious enthusiasm of the segment, and perhaps of the night, came from Jack Black, who included Osbourne and recalled how he first heard “Blizzard of Oz,” from Osbourne's 1980 solo debut, “The Heavens Open Above Me.” He punctuated the memory with a roaring, red-faced rendition of the title line from opening track “I Don't Know” that perfectly captured the honoree's heavy-metal insanity – and the best way the hall could. It recognizes the culture-shaping contribution of artists to life.

The piece dedicated to a tribe called Quest gave the night its emotional peak. In his speech honoring the Queens quartet, comedian Dave Chappelle credited the group with revolutionizing the hip-hop aesthetic in the 1990s, calling their rise “signaling to everyone that you can be cool and not necessarily gangsters” and lamented the loss of Phife. . Doug, a member who died in 2016 at the age of 45, from complications of diabetes.

Rapper-producer Q-Tip's elaborate speech also honored Phife and “the spark that ignited between our four boys in 1985 in New York City.” Outpouring of gratitude, Chappelle thanked the group for inviting him to join “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, “12 Years in the Cold” and Busta Rhymes — who revived his ferocious, star-making verse — during an upbeat medley of Tribe classics. “Scenery” — which also featured Common, Queen Latifah, De La Soul and The Roots — sings from the stage, “You birthed me, Tribe.”

The final introduction of the night was offered not by a musician, but by an Oscar-winning actress: Julia Roberts, who unpacked her longtime Dave Matthews Band fandom in a long, impassioned speech that praised the group's “joyful, spontaneous abandon.”

Returning to his pre-fame bartending gig at Miller's, a jazz-focused club in Charlottesville, Va., Matthews, 57, emphasized how much he looked up to his future bandmates Carter Beauford and Leroy Moore, who died in 2008. (The night before, he performed “A Pirate Looks at 40” for Jimmy Buffett, who was honored for musical excellence with Dionne Warwick, the MC5 and Motown producer and songwriter Norman Whitfield.)

Matthews yelled at other key members of the scene — including Miller's owner Steve Tharp in attendance — about his fellow members, concluding, “I just ruined the whole speech.” But the team is not finished yet. Matthews said it would offer “some moving music,” as he played a repetitive riff on his acoustic guitar and the band broke into an upbeat cover of Talking Heads' “Burning Down the House.”