Thanks for the post, I've been a Moodies fan nearly as long as I've been a Gord fan (heck, while I've seen Gord in concert like 20 times now, I saw the Moodies live before any of those GL shows) and I had absolutely
no idea that this finally happened.
As a Moodies fan my favorite "classic era" member was Mike Pinder, his keyboard playing and his songs, while not commercial in the way that John and Justin's were, were still "deep" in a good way and to me, kind of the heart of the band early on. I totally understand and respect his wanting to no long be a touring musician and how that led him to leave the band. But I do hope that both Mike and Ray come out of retirement for the induction. I don't know if Mike even has a real Mellotron anymore but I'm darn sure he has the samples in some kind of keyboard. (the Mellotron was, after all, one of the first sample playing keyboards, you just didn't record the samples yourself, but bought sets of prerecorded tapes from the manufacturer - and Mike had worked as a QC tech in the Streetly Factory prior to coming to the Moodies, so he knew the device in a way that probably no one else did, which is probably the only reason they made it work on tour, as it was never really intended as anything other than a home/studio device.. and man did he know how to get the most out of it)