SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple Inc.'s employee-only memorial service Wednesday for Steve Jobs at the company's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters featured performances by Coldplay and Norah Jones, but it was a recording of Jobs himself that brought down the house.

At CEO Tim Cook's direction, Apple played a recording of its co-founder and former CEO reciting the lines to its famous "Think Different" commercial, which was created soon after he returned to head the company in 1997. According to Cook, Jobs, who died Oct. 5 at age 56, wrote the commercial's famous lines, which began, "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" and was accompanied by pictures of famous luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan and the Rev. Martin Luther King. The words in the original commercial were read by actor Richard Dreyfuss; Cook said Jobs didn't want his own voice to be used because he didn't want Apple to be thought of as just his company.

With Jobs' voice filling the quad in the middle of its Cupertino campus and surrounding the crowds of employees gathering there, "suddenly you could hear everyone in the place trying to hold back tears," said one employee who attended the ceremony. "It was the best moment of the day."

The event marked a chance for Apple's workers to remember Jobs, who, with Steve Wozniak, founded the company in 1976 and then led its amazing resurrection after returning to the company in 1997 after a 12-year absence. The event was broadcast to employees at remote offices and Apple stores.

In addition to Cook, others who spoke at the ceremony included former Vice President Al Gore, who is an Apple board member; Bill Campbell, chairman of Intuit and also an Apple board member; and Jony Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, according to the employee. Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, attended the ceremony but did not speak, the employee said.

Apple workers lined up early in the morning to attend the memorial service at the company's campus at 1 Infinite Loop. The ceremony, which began at 10 a.m. and ended about 90 minutes later, marked the life of Jobs, who died after battling pancreatic cancer.

People streamed in along De Anza Boulevard at the headquarters, many from the campus's satellite offices, some carrying banners. Shuttle buses brought workers in from more distant locations. Many mourners carried their Apple notebooks to the service.

Thousands of Apple workers sat or stood in the middle of the company's main campus in Cupertino before the beginning of the service, according to video taken from a helicopter flying overhead by local NBC affiliate KNTV. Other employees were standing on balconies or patios overlooking the center common area. On a wall, there was a multi-story-high picture of Jobs.

Coldplay and singer Norah Jones both played at the memorial service, the employee said. Coldplay performed four songs, including "Fix You." In that tune, the group sings, "Tears stream down your face . . . and I will try to fix you."

"It was so fitting for a memorial," the employee remarked. "That was very sweet."

The ceremony ended with Randy Newman's song "You've Got a Friend in Me" playing over the loudspeakers, the employee said. That was the theme song to "Toy Story," the first feature film created by Pixar, which Jobs owned and ran until it was acquired by Disney in 2006.

Later, dozens of employees gathered at a nearby BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse. Several of them raised their glasses to toast Jobs. One employee said that the event helped to give Apple workers closure after Jobs' death.

During the ceremony, Apple's stores closed or delayed opening. At the Walnut Creek, Calif., Apple store, the white curtain drawn across the windows drew the attention of passers-by. An employee opening the door for other workers said they could not speak with reporters.

A handful of customers arrived around the usual opening time of 10 a.m. When told the store was closed so employees could watch Jobs' memorial, Pittsburg, Calif., resident Hameed Islam, who was hoping to set up a Genius Bar appointment, called the move an appropriate gesture.

"Steve Jobs made all this possible," he said. "He made it possible for them to even be employed today. It's nice to give them a moment of silence."

The company, which has been displaying a picture of Jobs on the home page of its website since it announced his death, also began sharing some of the more than 1 million condolence messages that it has received, such as "Thank you, Steve, for changing the world," from a fan named Julene.

Wednesday's memorial service is the third since Jobs' death. Jobs' family held a small private funeral for him on Oct. 7. On Sunday, Apple held a service for Jobs at Stanford University that was attended by business, cultural and technology luminaries including Gore, Google CEO Larry Page and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Although Apple executives and some employees attended Sunday's service, Wednesday's service is the first one exclusively for Apple workers.

Jobs led one of the most spectacular turnaround efforts in American corporate history. When he took control of Apple in 1997, the company was weeks from bankruptcy. When he resigned in August, saying he was unable to continue doing the job, Apple was one of the two most valuable companies in the United States, with tens of billions of dollars in the bank and a fleet of hit products boosting its sales and profits.