Rock n Roll Hall of fame - Part 1

21st june , 2008.
Well, as soon as i woke up i was feeling as hopped up as a kid high on sugar.
The reason was simple , i was about to visit a museum which is called "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" museum in Cleveland and i was darn excited about it.
I wish i could put to words the kinda feeling you have when u are about to charter into an unexplored territory , somewhere u always wanted to be.
The best example i can give is of a 'virgin' groom about to enter the room (empty room) with just his bride , just imagine the kind of anticipation he keeps in the abyss of his deepest desires :P.

By the way , just so you know all rallies that "look" like peace rallies are not always what they look like and COULD be a part of joyous celebrations of the "UNHOLY" (HOMO-ERECTUS as i put it) of their "UNHOLYNESS" if you know what i mean... we will talk about that later.

lets just skip to the part where i entered the GATES of the museum and let me just tell you that it took me like a minute to realize what mistake i had made and i tried to choke myself as soon as i realized that . I entered at 1:45 P.M. and museum closed at 5:30 .... nd i knew within seconds that this time was not enough (and the 23$ ticket made sure that my MOM wont let me visit it again).
So let me just take you all through a breezy tour through the Museum.
It started of with beautiful portraits of Legends like chuck berry ,Lennon , Elvis ,Dylan and mick jagger as a warmup.Then was the actual start , roots of Rock nd roll were on display.
Their were portraits, information and recording samples of d FATHERS AND MOTHERS of rock n roll , with the likes of Robert Johnson,Luis Jordon , Jimmy roger ,Lead Belly , Luis Armstrong , charlie christian etc etc (dont remember them all).Heard and was impressed by the works of Robert Johnson , The 1st modern day bluesman and the tunes of his early tracks such as "Crossroad blues" and "love in vein".Then another bluesman caught my attention , The infamous "louis Armstrong" and heard his track "Westend blues" atleast thrice.
Then came across the mentors such as T-bone walker -Electric blues guitarist , Jimmy yancee ,Hank Williams and none other then "LES PAUL" .
Of all of them there were some that hit me in a way that made me go for some soul searching , Mainly Woodie Guthrie .His work made me notice the similarities between the works of Bob Dylan and Bruce springsteen and i knew where the greats came from.
More of like Willie Dixon , Dinah washington , Elmore james , Pete seagar , Bill Monroe were on display.
There were many more but due to lack of Memory reserves and lazy nature (didnt right all of them down) i cant remember them all :P
After this there was a digital section where we could see and compare the modern day artists and their influences and hear their similarities in music and song writing .
I came to know that An old timer named "Bert jansch" was the influencing factor in shaping up the works of Jimmy page and Neil Young.
Willie Dixon had inspired a lot of lyrical styles of Led Zep , and Woodie Gutherie and chuck berry providing a major sense of direction to Bob Dylan.
By the way i have decided to check out the work of "CREAM" in near future which unfortunately i haevnt yet coz a lot of bands have marked them as a major influence in their musical styles.
After breezing past some small exhibits i crashed into d father of all , ELVIS PRESLEY.
It had his Appreciation letters , Shirts , The famous JUMPSUIT ,show tickets , concert tickets , guitars , donation slips and d best of all his "LINCOLN MARK IV COUP" , the slanderous shiny beast with a look to kill for.

Meeting the GODs

Finally , I am writing the blog for which i created my blog account in the 1st place.
I know this should have come earlier but i was not in a state of stable mind to write anything about The "Liquid tension experiment" concert in BB King's grill nd pub at New york city :) !!
I was stationed at Cleveland,Ohio at my mausi's place and we left Cleveland at 3:00 , morning of 23rd , so early because it was an 8 hour drive to New york city.
Once reached , the whole day went by while visiting Statue of liberty and Empire states .... lets skip past the whole chapter and come to the point when me and my cousin were standing in front of the BB King's at 10:00 at night in the midst of the lavishing Times square and were taken aback by the loooooong queue in front of the club.
While there i met an authentic DT fan named Ben , the guy having visited DT's 7 concerts including SCORE and HAMMER OF GODS. We totally started chatting like long lost brothers abt Portnoy ... Petrucci ... Ruddess .. DT and on and on and on. My cousin brother was kinda confused but he is pretty new to the sanctuary of dream Theater sooooo.... .
So the stage was set , a couple of beers inside nd i was raring to go and there they were .... Potnoy followed by petrucci , levin and ruddess and then they start off with ... "ACID RAIN" !!!
"Shit .... thts Ruddess standing 5 mtrs away ... shit thts Levin 6 mtrs away ... shit thts Petrucci 8-9 mtrs away ... shit thts Portnoy 10-12 mtrs away ... shit i m watching them live ....
oh Fu!@ ... yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....wohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" were the exact words and emotions that were oozing inside my brain as soon as they strted , more of a fit if u may say :)
The crowd was selective , the ambiance was gripping and the beers were expensive :P,but who cares , you got a date with the GODS !!!!
After getting us all charged up by "Acid Rain" and following it by "Kindred spirits" there was a small intro by Mr. Portnoy and his sly sense of humour was at work ,and then a bit of silence ......................... 'wats it gnna b' , 'wats it gnna b' and then you see Ruddess's skillful fingers grace the Synth with an accord and we had "Biaxident" !!
Ohh i was soo thrilled that i pushed myself towards d 2nd row rite in front and i mean rite in front of Jordon Ruddess ... i just couldnt stop like i was getting sucked in by the mesmerizing tunes,my eyes fixed at his fingers dancing on the synth .
I have no clue how many musicians have the balls to pull off something like that but Portnoy in a very casual way ASKED if we mind if they could open jam for some time ..... HaH who d Hell would say no .
My oh My the Thumping sound of levin's stick bass and the mood signatures of Portnoy gave the jam a kick start and as soon as Pettruci and Ruddess joined in i named their jam Magnum Magnificence .
the "state of grace" , the "Universal Mind" and the "Another dimension" kept hitting me like cupid's arrows rite from my heart to my butt BUT the pinnacle of the concert for me was "When The Water Breaks" which if did not break then atleast stretched all the boundaries of Dulcet compositions.
Rite after that i gave a 'la salute towards Ruddess and he noticing it gave me a thankful salute back :) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All and all the end was was fitting as it could be with d Geniuses finishing with an encore of paradigm shift and osmosis.
I Did miss Bom there ... he would have cried for sure :D , bommy we will attend a DT concert together for sure ... "yeh mera waada hai" :)!!

Anyways they finished their set , Portnoy said he was tired playing twice in a row that night but satisfied by the response and love they got and we were standing in the middle with an awe filling our hearts and a sinking feeling that the set was over but we did all gave them a Biiiiiig hand and gave a loud farewell.
I came out of the pub and it started to drizzle within no time.
I closed my eyes and and i knew that in this charade of fakes and crowd of phoneys and showoffs , i just met the GODz of Rock nd ROll !!!!!!!!!