New York, .- They passed through the hands of Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix or Keith Richards and now they will look behind the windows of the Metropolitan Museum in New York: the iconic instruments, more than a hundred, that gave life to the rock and roll movement. first time an art museum for a large-scale exhibition.
“Play Higher: Rock & Roll Instruments” brings together at least 130 instruments of the most influential rockers of the last eight decades, whose tools are “objects of art” that encapsulate “innovation, experimentation, passion and rebellion” of an era , MET director Max Hollein said at a press conference on Monday.
Although the exhibition opens its doors from April 8 to October 1, the MET celebrated in advance the milestone by inviting its galleries, usually full of lovers of paintings, to “gods of the guitar” as Don Felder (The Eagles), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads) and Steve Miller.
With great expectation, Felder started to play the solo of “Hotel California” before those present with the double-necked Gibson that for 40 years has given its characteristic sound to the theme, one of the musical gems of the exhibition along with pianos, synthesizers, drums, posters and video clips of some 80 renowned musicians.
Precisely receives visitors the same Gibson with which Chuck Berry recorded the classic “Johnny B Goode”, the first piece of a journey through the musical history of the twentieth century to which they have contributed, among others, their own owners throughout years of organization between the MET and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“This is a day I would never have dreamed of seeing in my life, I took my guitar to school and they confiscated it from me,” said Jimmy Page, laughing, who made his “hobby” a lifestyle and whose guitar Double neck is exposed next to the costume embroidered with dragons that he wore when playing with Led Zeppelin between 1975 and 1977.
“I think the guitar chose me,” says Page in a video about the piece, a sensation that says to share Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones, in another clip where it shows a Gibson Les Paul that he decorated with paint pens and ” decidedly also with acid “, the same that appeared in the” Sympathy for the Devil “(1968), by the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
Steve Miller intervened in the crowded presentation to point out how “difficult it is for musicians to separate from their instruments” and assured that it gives even more importance to this show the “inclusiveness with women” of rock and roll, such as Joni Mitchell, Joan Jett , Patti Smith or Wanda Jackson, considered the “queen of rockabilly”.
The participation of artists reaches the most recent years, since there is the futuristic piano that Lady Gaga played on television to present “ARTPOP”, personalized with a transparent casing and LED lights, and reaches different cultures, as shown by the sitar of the musician and Indian composer Ravi Shankar, “maestro” of the instrument.
Among the most outstanding pieces stand out a Prince guitar with the shape of his symbol, with which he protested against the music industry; an Ibanez covered in mirror pieces by Paul Stanley (Kiss) or the Gibson Melody Maker with which Joan Jett recorded “I love Rock’n’Roll”, full of stickers with feminist slogans.
“Play It Out Loud”, the English name of the exhibition, includes complete sets of The Beatles, Metallica or The Who, but also instruments modified or destroyed in action by their owners, which left some of the most memorable photographs of the movement rock and roll for its rebelliousness and irreverence.
Thus, the most anti-establishment side of this musical era of the past century still resonates in the Gibson shattered by Pete Townshend (The Who) during a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz, preserved in resin, or in the remains of the Fender that Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) crashed on a tour performance of “In Utero” in 1993.
Other names present at the exhibition, which will include a closing concert in September, as announced at the Steve Miller event, are Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Bruce Sprinsgsteen, Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, St. Vincent or Jerry Garcia, from The Grateful Dead. (EFEUSA)
