Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!!!

On Saturday June 15th we spent a day at the Cleveland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Mom, Dad, and Julia met us the night before and we spent the next day together looking at all the great exhibits on display at the museum.

OK, this is a long post so be warned. There was a lot of good stuff to see. Check it out!!

Here you can see the Cleveland Browns football stadium which is right near the HOF museum.

After parking, we walked just a short distance to the museum. You can see the city skyline and the Cleveland Clinic Science Center below. The museum campus is right next to Lake Erie.

Cit skyline and the Science Center below

Here is a side shot of the museum. The front looks like a pyramid.

Look at these beautiful ladies!

We arrived EARLY to beat the crowd. Unfortunately, it didn't work. There were a lot of people there which makes sense since summer is just gearing up.

Dad was as excited as a little schoolboy to be there. Hard to tell here.

There is all kinds of stuff hanging in the lobby. No idea what this stuff means.

We started off the tour with a video "Mystery Train" that chronicled the history of rock and roll starting in the early 1900s and growing in the 1940s and 50s. Very cool short movie. (Sorry about the blurry pictures. No flash camera shots allowed)

Hail to the King baby!

Yes!!

This was a video of Hall of Fame ceremony performances. You can see Bruce Springstein and Bono singing together here. The car below was owned by Janis Joplin.

Tons of good stuff to see here. From top left corner clockwise, you can see Metallica, the Beach Boys, the Who, and ZZ Top. It was AMAZING how many personal belongings and artifacts they had.

Some of my favorite artifacts were handwritten notes that artists used when writing lyrics. You can see Billy Joels' "My Life" and the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" below.

(Left Clockwise) David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and The Supremes.

Very blurry picture of M. Jackson's glove (that he apparently designed himself)

Beatles stuff. They had a small exhibit of the Rolling Stones on the first floor but the rest of the Stones' exhibit was upstairs on the fifth floor.

A self-shot near the Beatles exhibit.

 We got bored here waiting for Dad. Entertainment is never in short supply when around Martins.

First Taxi ride together (Mom is sitting on Julia's lap!).  We went to a delicious Indian restaurant.  Dad didn't want to leave the museum so he stayed behind. 

 Taxi ride back to the museum.  Our poor driver didn't know what he was doing and got us lost but we still made it.

After lunch, we watched two videos. The first one chronicled many performances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. I had NO IDEA how influential Dick Clark was on American music and culture. I mean, EVERYBODY who was anybody performed on that show.

The second video was an incredible montage of Hall of Fame inductees over the ENTIRE history of the organization. It was a long video but well worth the time. I stayed until the end, 2013, to see Rush who was inducted this year.

Below you can see the signatures of all the inductees.

Rolling Stones!!!

This is a tribute to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" but we didn't have time to see it close up. We were there for five hours and STILL did not see everything.

 Headed towards the Rolling Stones Exhibit!

Rolling Stones stuff

Here we are at the end of our visit. Mica and I left to get back to Chicago but the parents and Julia stayed longer to see the sixth floor.

Touring bus of Johnny Cash and his wife. He used this busy from 1980 until the 2000s. Forgot to take a picture inside :(  But rest assured, it smelled and looked like the 1980s.