Mike Love's Rock Hall Induction Speech

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies used to be a lot more fun before they began televising them. Drunken, rambling speeches, insults and two-hour jam sessions were the norm. Take, for example, Mike Love's induction speech in 1988 with the Beach Boys:
And I think it's wonderful to be here tonight, but I also think it's sad that there are other people who aren't here tonight. And, uh, those are the people who have passed away, those are the obvious ones. But the other not-so-obvious ones are people like Paul McCartney, who couldn't be here tonight because he's in a lawsuit with Ringo and Yoko. That's what he sent a telegram to some, uh, high priced attorney in this room, you know. And that's a bummer, because we're talking about harmony, right, and the world. If we can't get it together in America and in England, and harmony within our groups. I mean, believe it, you can believe it the Beach Boys have their own [unintelligible] or whatever you call it, squabbles. But that's a bummer when Ms. Ross can't make it, you know?

The Beach Boys have continued to do, about, we did about 180 performances last year. I'd like to see the Mop-Tops match that! I'd like to see Mick Jagger get out on this stage and do "I Get Around" versus "Jumpin' Jack Flash", any day now. And I'd like to see some people kick out the jams, and I challenge the Boss to get up on stage and jam.

[during Mike's pause, someone in the house band plays the theremin line of "Good Vibrations" during the crowds tepid response] I wanna see Billy Joel, see if he can still tickle ivories, lemmee see. I know Mick Jagger won't be here tonight, he's gonna have to stay in England. But I'd like to see us in the Coliseum and he at Wembley Stadium because he's always been chickenshit to get on stage with the Beach Boys.

The video of the speech was on YouTube, but sadly it has been taken down. If anyone knows where it can be seen, let us know in the comments.
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