First of all, I could have sworn that there was already a thread about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the board that I had posted about this in, but I sure don't see one. Oh well, I guess I must be having a premature senior moment.
As some of you may know, I am a huge Miami Dolphin fan, and in August, 2005, I made a trip to Canton to see my football hero, Dan Marino, be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. We decided we needed to make it a true “Hall of Fame” trip and drive on up to Cleveland to also visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a great time and if you are ever in the Cleveland area, you don’t want to miss it. We spent a full day in the museum, but definitely would have spent more time if we could have. There were many memorable exhibits, but I’ll focus on the things I can remember about the Eagles memorabilia on display.
The first Eagles-related thing I saw was Don’s original drum set that he used on the first several albums and tours. I don’t know why, but I was kinda awestruck. But, I do remember being very unimpressed with their ugly dark reddish gold color.
The Eagles exhibit was relatively small, but very cool, nonetheless. Each of the band members had something on display, but I can’t remember everything. The things I do remember are one of Bernie’s acoustic guitars, one of Joe’s electric guitars, and one of Felder’s white Hotel California double necks. There were hand-written lyrics for a couple of songs, which I thought were very cool, but I am bummed because, for the life of me, I can’t remember which songs. I do remember being pretty confident that one of them was in Glenn’s handwriting. There was a football jersey with Joe’s name on it. They also had a pair of Glenn’s patchwork jeans with the same silver belt that he is wearing in the famous ‘Come Hither’ photo. Another thing that was really cool was a very large duffel bag full with hundreds of hotel keys that Timothy “collected” during his days of touring with the band. Man – that was a lot of hotels.
There was also a James Gang display, but it was in such a small area that I had a difficult time seeing anything. I do remember being jazzed because they were playing Walk Away in that room, which I could hear just fine.
Eva, my biggest disappointment was that the museum did not permit photographs of the exhibits. I wanted to try to snap a quick pic of the Eagles exhibit, but the policy was being strictly enforced. They had museum staff stationed all over to prevent it. This was really puzzling to me, especially since the NFL Hall of Fame had absolutely no restrictions about taking pictures.