Hey there everyone and happy Monday! I hope that all of you had a fabulous weekend, I know I did! My Uncle Martin and Aunt Eileen who live in Pittsburgh came to visit my family so on Saturday we spent the afternoon in Cleveland at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame & Museum. I haven’t been to the Rock Hall in years so needless to say, I was pretty excited! I have a deep love and appreciation for all things music so it was so amazing to be able to spend an afternoon honoring all of the greats. I hate to brag, but I have a pretty incredible collection of music and my tastes are vast but I never realized how educated I was about different musicians and genres until I perused through the Rock Hall. My parents and older brother really did teach me well about all of the legends and classics and I was so proud to know that I was aware of musicians in genres that I don’t particularly care for, like Gospel and Country. There was so much to see and do in the six floors that the Rock Hall boasts, so let me post some pictures and then we can discuss!

^^^ I took so many pictures that the only way to condense all of them was through PicStitch. The pictures in the collages include costumes from David Bowie, Elvis, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson. We got to see Johnny Cash’s tour bus, Janis Joplin’s car, the set from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, and so much more!!! If you have any questions on what specific pictures are, then please let me know in the comment section!

Once we met up with my aunt and uncle at the Rock Hall we decided to start from the top at floor five and six to view the two floor exhibit of the amazing late Herb Ritts’ Rock Portraits. The photography exhibition will only be up for a month or so and it was absolutely incredible – it was like walking through an art gallery. The portraits were mostly in black and white or sepia and they were taken of too many stars to name. There were photographs of David Bowie, Madonna, Britney Spears, Cher, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mick Jagger just to name a few. Throughout the exhibit there were music videos that Herb Ritts directed playing and interesting information about the artist scattered along the walls. The Rock Portraits gallery was one of my favorite parts of my rock n’ roll filled afternoon.

^^^ Compliments of Mr. Ritts!

On the fourth floor there was a huge section of the set from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” which I remember from my last visit there but was so cool to see again! That display is neat because you can see it if you look down or up from any other floor. It definitely made me feel small standing next to the display! There was also a theater on level four which we stayed in for awhile. They were playing a video from what I’m assuming was an induction to the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame. We watched lots of different artists perform and it was especially fun seeing Jeff Beck on stage with his daughter who couldn’t have been more than sixteen at the time playing the guitar like nobodies business!

We headed down to the third floor afterwards which has a cafe and another beautiful theater. In that theater they were playing highlights of different induction ceremonies from years ago until present day which included interviews, photographs, and animation to tell the stories of the artists. As we exited the theater there was a long hallway that we followed and on the walls were panels of signatures from the inductees. As you can see in my PicStitches, I snapped a pic of U2’s signatures which is probably the closest I’ll ever get to having their autographs!

Level two of the Rock Hall was all about the masterminds of rock n’ roll like Les Paul and Alan Freed. There were displays upon displays of original record players, guitars, and recording studios. Old school televisions in the display cases played footage of black and white variety shows which was a fun touch. Level two was jam packed with amazing information and artifacts. As we exited the Architects of Rock and Roll section we walked into a multimedia production called Video Killed the Radio Star which had a television tower made up of at least thirty or more TV’s and all of them were playing a different music video fresh off of the early days of MTV. Another very cool exhibit on level two was all about Rolling Stone magazine. There were three walls completely filled with famous covers of Rolling Stone with artists such as Marilyn Manson, Kurt Cobain, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Britney Spears. (I love her fabulous cover where she’s lounging on the phone while cuddling a Teletubbie so much! SO CUTE!)

We ended our trip to the Rock Hall at the lower level which is where you’re supposed to start, but that’s okay! The lower level is the bread and butter of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame – it’s a wonderland full of costumes, instruments, jewelry, and set pieces all belonging to the legends. There were specific sections dedicated to artists like Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles. What I loved about this level was that it took you through each genre of music from a historical point. It started with the early days of the Blues and ended with music from the present day. My favorite genre to explore was the Punk section that had memorabilia from The New York Dolls, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and The Ramones to name a few. In the Punk display case they had a Joan Jett fashion doll which was so adorable! There was a case dedicated to U2 in the lower level as well which I was pretty thrilled about!

After we explored through the outer rings of the bottom level we ended up at the epicenter which is a dark room filled with well lit costumes and instruments from all of the greats – there was James Brown, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, The Who, The Beach Boys, and Metallica. That list is not even a quarter of the artists that the gigantic room had memorabilia from. It was seriously unbelievable. There were countless exhibits to end up in on the bottom floor and all of them were equally awesome. A few that I particularly enjoyed was a section on the origins of hip hop and a multimedia display called Don’t Knock the Rock. In this display there were different interviews playing of early day televangelists and political figures bashing rock n’ roll music and then it would cut to a reaction of rock musicians. Before we left the lower level we watched one more video compilation in a theater of very sweet reactions of inductees being entered into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. I could have stayed on this floor for forever!

Our trip to the Rock Hall was so much fun and this post doesn’t even cover half of all of the amazing displays that we got to see. If you ever are in Cleveland, Ohio then you definitely don’t want to let the opportunity to spend some time at the Rock Hall pass by! I hope that all of you enjoyed reading this post just as much as I did writing it! What musician would you like to see memorabilia from? Do you have any questions about any specific displays or pictures? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah