While I had heard of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame many times before, there was still a lot I didn't know about the place. As I mentioned in my post yesterday the majority of the museum exists on the bottom level below ground. It's actually kind of shaped a bit like a pyramid with each consecutive floor getting smaller and smaller as you approach the top.
You seriously could have spent all day just on the bottom level looking at all of the different areas complete with outfits, guitars, and other memorabilia spread about here and there. As I mentioned yesterday, the second floor which was actually the ground floor was dedicated solely to a food court, gift shop, and open area for people to mill about and get in the way.
I don't know what they were offering in the food court, but someone burned their toast and if you are familiar with that smell, you know how much it can proliferate a space. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time on the second floor...
Just for clarification, they actually called the main exhibit area of the museum "level 0", and then the floor you walk in is considered "level 1" for them. It's almost a shame the place wasn't a bit taller so they could go all the way up to "level 11" if they wanted (extra comment upvotes if you get the reference there).
The third floor or "level 2" is called the Garage and in other circumstances I could have seen us spending a lot of time on this level. However, on this occasion, we did not. The Garage is an area where visitors can play various instruments and even make their own pop up "garage band". There is also a not so small area called Willie's Acoustic lounge where you can pick up and play a wide variety of string instruments.
Think of it as a more upscale Guitar Town or something like that.
Unfortunately for us, there was a group in the one section struggling through "Sweet Child of Mine". The person seemed to only know the first couple bars of the guitar riff and it was choppy and hesitant at best. @mrsbozz looked at me and said "I can't listen to this", so we continued on to the fourth floor or "level 3". By the time we were heading up the escalator, they had become a bit more cohesive, but it was still kind of painful.
I could have stayed home and went to the bar if I wanted to hear a crappy cover band...
Level 3 is the actual hall of fame where they have the wall of artists who were inducted over the years. I shared a bit from the year 1988 yesterday in my ThreeTuneTuesday post. I took a lot more photos, so I will be sharing those too in the future.
Along with the wall of inductees, they also had a special exhibit on the third level dedicated to the inductees from 2024. They have narrowed down the class of 2025, but the ceremony hasn't happened yet. I expect once that takes place they will swap out this display with stuff from the new class.
Level four is complete with a replica of The Wall that was used on the Pink Floyd 1990 Berlin tour. I didn't spend much time here as I am not a huge Pink Floyd fan. I appreciate them and respect them, but I have never really taken a deep dive into their music.
Level 5 is dedicated to the Legends of Rock exhibit that had a lot of great stuff in it. As you can see from the photos above, they had a motorcycle from Elvis, the hand written lyrics for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band, some stuff from Van Halen, and other items. It was about this time we ran into the area where the opening photo for this post was taken. We had no clue that there was a special exhibit all about Bon Jovi.
It was pure luck that we just happened to visit during that time, but @mrsbozz wasn't complaining at all. After the fact she unsurprisingly confessed that was her favorite part of the museum.
I'd also like to point out on the legends of rock floor there was a nice little section dedicated to Taylor Swift complete with the famous cardigan. I don't really know if I would consider her rock, but the fact that she is a legend is beyond question.
It was only fitting that our final ascension of stairs in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame was to the pinnacle of level 6 and the Bon Jovi Forever exhibit.
I remembered from the documentary they did a short time ago that Bon Jovi did a really good job of archiving their stuff over the years. It's almost like he had the foresight (or hubris) to know that they were going to become rock legends and he thought, I should create an archive and hold onto this stuff.
They even had some stuff from the time before Bon Jovi when he was playing in cover bands like The Atlantic City Expressway and Raze. In case you don't know, Bon Jovi is based on the lead singer John Bongiovi's name. Sometimes band names just fall into your lap am I right?
Of course I had to get a shot of the original Slippery When Wet album cover. It's pretty funny how something considered so racy back then is pretty average by today's standards...
I've said before, one of my favorite parts of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was seeing all the handwritten music and lyrics by some of the artists. Bon Jovi didn't disappoint on that from with plenty of John and Richie Sambora gold on display.
Check out that tour poster in the third photo above, Lita Ford opening for Bon Jovi, I bet that was an amazing show! I know the final photo above is a bit hard to read, but it's the lyrics to one of my personal favorite Bon Jovi songs, "Bad Medicine".
As much as the old stuff is cool to see, it was also nice to see some stuff from their later albums and tours like The Circle, Crush, and These Days. They even had some hand drawn notes on how they wanted the stage set up as you can see in the photos above. As I said before, I probably wouldn't visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame again unless they had a special exhibit like this that was something I was really interested in.
Oddly enough, I don't remember seeing anything from U2 in the Hall of Fame. It had to be there though, I likely just missed it. Maybe I do need to make another trip!
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hah, that's a great idea. Yes of course I know the "it goes to 11" reference. I can see it now "Most Rock & Roll hall of fames only go up to the tenth floor. Does that mean it's better?" "Well it's one higher isn't it?"
As to Taylor Swift's inclusion... Well the line between pop and rock has been kind of fuzzy at least since the 60s, hasn't it? At least for some singers and groups. Like the early Beatles were all boy band pop, but their later stuff was mostly rock with some pop. A guy like Elton John would be right on that line, with any given song being more on one side or the other.
Anyway, again, looks like a cool place.
Yeah, it was pretty neat. I don't know if I will ever make it a point to go back there, but I am glad I went at least once. I have some more stuff I am going to share in the future with some special artists. I think there is a lot of influence across the genres and they probably do their best to walk that line without ticking anyone off. Though the controversy over the years might indicate otherwise.
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What an awesome place! I've always enjoyed it there, just about the only thing in Cleveland that I really enjoyed though. That's some nice Bon Jovi stuff you got pictures of, what a great band! Very cool! I'll have to look back at part one now, I've been down for a couple days with a sore back, finally feeling well enough to try to catch up!
Back pain is the worst! It almost makes me understand why people get addicted to opioids. The hall of the game was pretty amazing even though I probably wouldn't visit again. We really lucked out with the Bon Jovi exhibit.
Back pain does suck, sad part is I don't know why it flared up on me. I haven't been doing any heavy lifting lately...
You know what, I've never figured it out either. I honestly sometimes think it flares up because I pooped funny. It's that random!
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I’ve always heard of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but didn’t know it had that many levels and cool exhibits.
It's pretty amazing to experience at least once!
All these pictures are really very ironic and stunning. Just loved them! I think that visiting such places and coming across such things seems to be fun.!!
It was a good time!
That would really be something to see all of that memorabilia in person! I think I might have to plan a trip there myself. There seemed to be so many more big stars back then, or maybe celebrity itself was different? I think so much access to celebrities everyday thoughts and feelings through social media has taken a lot of the old mystique out of the equation.
Yes, I think celebrity in general was a little less accessible back then. A lot of it probably has to do with social media which is usually the case these days. It's worth the trip at least once if you are even the slightest fan of music.
absolute rock' legends
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I know you like some Bon Jovi so you got a nice bonus. I do like Pink Floyd and went to a big exhibition of their stuff a few years ago. Went to a similar one for Bowie too. Both of those had wireless headphones where the music changed as you wandered around. I thought that added to the experience.
Definitions of what 'rock and roll' means will vary. Music genres are really diverse these days and I couldn't even say where some bands I like fit in. Not that they have to. I'm sure a lot of artists don't want to be put in a 'box'.
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