Vic's Cleveland Bash review
hi all,
had a great time this past weekend.
so Thursday i drove home to Cleveland from school here at Purdue (praying the whole way that i wouldn't be caught mid-blizzard). the roads were great, so no problem there.
i figured that if U2 were to show up to the exhibit, they probably would wanna check out the Rock Hall entire, not just their own stuff. so, since the preview wasn't till Saturday and most people would be working Friday (and thus not at the Rock Hall), i decided to go spend my Friday there. i figured if U2 was there, great, if not, i'd check out the rock hall anyways. well, they weren't
i did, however, meet 2 very nice rock hall employees who talked to me for quite some length. one was working in May 2001 during U2's Cleveland Elevation stop and took Bono around the Rock Hall on 2 separate occasions. she said he was very short (i can attest to that!) and extremely quiet - no rock star attitude at all. i also managed to meet the curator Jim Henke and thanked him for (1) bringing the exhibit here and (2) getting so much stuff for it. Looking at the 4th floor i noticed that 1 of the Anton Corbijn pictures was mislabeled (it was Bono w/ a motorcycle during Elevation-era, but was labeled 1997).
that night i was at the Hard Rock bash and met some really nice folks: Elvis/Joel, HelloAngel/Carrie, Anita & Ron from MN, etc.
Elevation was a great tribute band. i was really impressed. i talked w/ Danno a bit before and he really has studied Bono's live show. besides looking like him, he's got the mannerisms down, including the talking w/ a slight Irish accent, hugging himself w/ 1 arm while singing, etc. i can say that while there were maybe 5 or 6 songs that were a tad off (not exact audio replicas of U2), Elevation more than made up for it in endurance -- they played from 10pm to 1:45am with only about a 5 minute break to change clothes! i was exhausted just watching them! Danno did a great job w/ switching up the clothes, hats, and shades to correspond with Bono's evolving style.
early Saturday afternoon i went to the Rock Hall w/ my fiance and we checked out everything. at 4:30pm the curator Mr. Henke began showing media and VIP people around the exhibit (the 4th floor was open to the public but the 5th and 6th floors were guarded). Ran into Elvis and HelloAngel as they were walking about taking pix. i met Mr. Henke again and showed him the mislabeled photo on the wall. he got kinda perturbed and said they would fix it right away. At that point they began shutting down the Rock Hall so they could have people with tickets line up outside. i was walking downstairs to leave when Mr. Henke asked if i had seen the 5th and 6th floors yet. i told him "no" (obviously) and he told me to come up - he would let me into it. so up i went, no hassle from security, and beheld the exhibit. nice stuff (i won't ruin it for everyone) but suffice to say there was early artifacts, rejection letters from record companies, and handwritten lyrics. did this boy take pictures of the latter? does a bear crap in the woods? i was kinda nervous, but then remembered that i had the curator's approval to be up in there...
went downstairs, waited in line to get in at 6:30pm, and saw everything again!
anyways, the food was great, Mr. Henke made a nice speech (interrupted by a bagpipe contingent bearing apologies from the band for not being there). by that point i kinda already knew they weren't gonna show because i had read an article somewhere where Larry was talking about being too busy working on the new album in Dublin. also, folks, let us not forget that the U.S. had just gone to "Orange Level Alert" for national security a day or 2 before. not the best time to be flying intercontinental for our boys, IMHO.
afterwards we were gonna check out Elevation again, but we were exhausted and just crashed.
it was great meeting everyone! Elvis & Carrie, great job on the site. Ron, thanks again for the present.
If there's 1 contemporary band that deserves the Rock Hall treatment, i would have to say it's U2. overall, a great few days in Cleveland!
Victor
If I'd gotten the chance, I would have taken about 50 of the handwritten Out Of Control.
