Our night in Cleveland was relatively uneventful. We walked from our hotel on Huron Street down to 9th Street. From what we could tell, we were in a district of office buildings with not much nightlife around. From 9th Street, we walked north towards Lake Erie and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Although the hall of fame was closed, we were still able to catch a great sunset over Lake Erie. We also had a great view of the Cleveland Browns Progressive Field.
After taking in these sites, we set our sights on getting some long overdue grub. We headed west and found our way to 4th street. This was more of a pedestrian street with several restaurants to choose from. We walked to the end of the thoroughfare and decided on an Irish Pub called Flannery’s.
At Flannery’s, we were seated outside on the patio because it was a pleasantly breezy 70 degrees out. We were also within view of the Quicken Loans Arena where Labron James kills it on a daily basis during basketball season, but back to the meal. I went with the meat loaf, which was actually an impulse order. It was also fantastic. The loaf looked like it was baked, then sliced and sautéed with a nice little crunch on the outside. Did I mention that it was wrapped in bacon? The gravy on the loaf had a good amount of spice to it and the mashed potatoes were standard. I ordered a Burning River Pale Ale with the meal. Since it was a Cleveland brewing company, I decided to give this local brew a try. It was an OK ale. The bitter aftertaste was not very subtle and was ultimately the downfall to what could have been a good beer.
After a satisfying dinner experience, we went back to the room to call it a night. Driving in a car over 6 hours is not exactly a way to boost your energy. We work up this morning around 8 a.m. to get prepared to check Cleveland out. By Cleveland I mean the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame mostly. From the front, this places looks likes a glass pyramid. There are speakers in a garden outside blasting classic rock anthems. You walk into this enormous atrium and it becomes quite obvious that the developers of this place were not fooling around. There are 6 floors of Rock and Roll to be had. Currently, 2 of those floors are being occupied by a Bruce Springsteen exhibit. Awesome.
We started on the first floors. You are encouraged to watch these short films encompassing the very abbreviated history of rock and roll. Showing clips from the early days of rock and roll all the way to the 1990s. At one point, all of these musicians discuss the lifestyle they have and how it can take its toll on some people. One interview shows a youthful Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones questioning how anyone can make it to age 70 in this business. Good question Keith, how have you almost done it ?!
After the videos, we checked out the rest of the first floor. There were Exhibits on Elvis, the British Invasion, Michael Jackson and many others. One of the coolest things to me besides seeing the costumes or the instruments of these great artists, was seeing handwritten lyrics to some of the best songs out there. I viewed a handwritten page with the lyrics to “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC scribbled on them by Bon Scott himself! I also got to see the handwritten lyrics to New Order’s hit “Blue Monday” which was crazy! It’s just hard to believe that some of the best songs were simply just words on a page at one point. More on this later. After the first floor, we went straight up to the 5th to begin the Bruce Springsteen exhibit, which also continued onto the 6th floor as well. I love this exhibit, mostly because I’m a HUGE Bruce Springsteen fan. You know how I mentioned that they had the handwritten lyric pages? Well Bruce was kind enough to submit the lyrics to “Born to Run.” Reading these was kind of chilling because it was to be one of my favorite songs ever. It has to be one of the most well written songs ever. They also had the Academy Award statue that Bruce had won for his contribution to the Philadelphia soundtrack for the song, “Streets of Philadelphia.” It was awesome to see what one of the Oscar trophies looks like. There was also a display of the jeans and t-shirt that he wore for the cover of the Born in the USA album. This was definitely one of my favorite exhibits of the day.
On the other, much smaller, floors there were some other somewhat average exhibits. Do I really care about Ricky Nelson? We got to see a video that showed all of the inductees to the hall of fame. There were some artists that may have left out of there or just haven’t been inducted yet. We did miss a few minutes of the beginning, but it looked as though they haven’t inducted Stevie Ray Vaughn yet. WTF?
All in all, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alone is worth the visit to Cleveland. I’m not going to judge this city based on this one night though. There are plenty of reasons for the relatively quiet night we had. We were there on a weeknight, there were no Indians, Browns, or Cavaliers games going on and, to be honest, we didn’t really know much about this city. We didn’t know where the hotspots were. Drew Carrey himself states “Cleveland Rocks.” It did, mostly because of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps next time, it will rock a little harder.
PS
I did get to see the house from the film A Christmas Story.
