I was okay with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I was pissed at their camera policy. I went all that way to take a picture by the Ramones case
I have a lot of Cleveland stories. Moving on, though.
Here's the
Rock Legends museum. This place was really bizarre...you had to go in a gift shop to pay for tickets ($26 cdn for 2 people), then walk back next door to give them to the girl at the desk with the cash register whose only function was to take tickets
They also had big signs everywhere that basically said "We know we're awesome, but don't you dare take any pictures of our stuff unless you buy a ticket." Yeah, fuck you up both nostrils, Rock Legends.
There was a stage with various crap I didn't take a picture of. You passed under KISS as you went through the entryway. No photos of KISS without paying...yes, this is very much in the spirit of KISS.
The Gene Simmons wasn't bad, but I think there's sort of a correlation between a cartoonish original and a decent rendering.
You just sort of wandered through a chronological arrangement of figures. This was their Jimi Hendrix.
This looks nothing like Janis Joplin, postmortem or otherwise.
Jerry Garcia was looking ok, but I was wondering if all the sunglasses were a lazy move on the part of the sculptors. I kept wanting to lift them to see if there was just a flat expanse of unworked wax underneath.
Alice Cooper.
Freddie Mercury looks like one of those male blow-up dolls. From what I've heard, that might not have been too far off.
Then there was this.
I know there's not much of a leap from "Johnny Rotten" to "rabid baboon", but I feel they could have done better here.
And I think Sid waxing Vicious here might have had a few more brain cells than the original:
For the record, the Sex Pistols were the ONLY token punk exhibit I saw. There was also a 20 foot tall mural of them outside the Hard Rock Cafe. I was very disappointed.
And for some reason, I was offended that they didn't bother to paint the inside of Ozzy's nostrils:
Here's Tina Turner looking terrifying.
Steven Tyler.
Bruce Springsteen?
...Madonna?
...would you believe Eddie Vedder?
Bono. Taunting me with his sunglasses.
The funny thing with this place was, they started a rap/hip hop section, but they either ran out of space or enthusiasm. So they basically called it in by blasting rap down the back staircase on the way out, and painted glow-in-the dark Snoop Dogg and Eminem. Didn't even bother with wax.
So those are three Niagara Falls money-eaters, hope you enjoyed them. I'm enjoying the thought of people seeing this stuff for free.