Hard Rockin’ across the USA

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The musical and culinary franchise that is the Hard Rock Café attracts tourists the world over and why wouldn’t it? That’s the main clientele flocking to the overpriced pub fare set up in high traffic, high rent tourist hubs. And as much as I loathe the blatant commercialism overshadowing any sort of genuine rock homage, I still flocked, occasionally self consciously, towards it. A self respecting music fan wouldn’t want to travel all the way to America and walk right past a venue that just may have a superior piece of rock memorabilia!

As much as the San Francisco branch likes to shout out about Love All Serve All, it is primarily, a business venture, and if you’re not there to depart with your newly bought Greenbacks there’s not so much of a warm welcome. But a tip of the hat must go to Memphis who simply asked me if I wanted a table or just to go straight up to the floor dedicated to Elvis Presley. No and yes, respectively.

The café opened in 1979 in London, but only started collecting merchandise in 1979 after Eric Clapton donated a Fender guitar, then Pete Townshend of The Who famously followed suit with a cheeky note: “mine’s as good as his!”.

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Each café has a connected merchandise store. And yes I did buy a couple things, including a guitar shaped pin designed by The Who, from a series of artist-designed stock donating proceeds to charity. Luckily for this 60s British invasion fan, it was The Who’s turn, because, honestly, they have massive posters of Shakira in there and that majorly distorted the whole rock premise. And the whole badge collecting this must really be a big hobby out there coz I didn’t think you could viably have that many pin variations that say Hard Rock Café. You can. But disappointingly for those wanting to spend up in these stores, most of the stuff is generic, beyond the classic t-shirt, the majority of products don’t state the individual city you have visited, and as these are essentially souvenirs, it would help to have the globetrotting name dropping pre printed for you.

This sounds like a bit of a tirade against commercialism, but in my defence, I did visit several different cafes (well, the stores mainly), and see some cool sights. Elvis’s original prison shirt from the Jailhouse Rock movie, The Beatles suits in New York, a wall of donated guitars. I even had dinner at the Times Square restaurant in NYC….because while it’s exceedingly easy to be a critic, we all want to fit in with the mainstream tourist traps occasionally!

To name a few, there are restaurants and stores in New York, Memphis (off the rock and blues mecca of Beale street), on the waterside in Miami, Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco and the largest café, by Universal Studios in Orlando. Downtown Disney in Florida has its attempt at similar competition in The House of Blues. Which does sound cooler, but amounts to a similar sort of enterprise. Hard Rock even have the hotel thing happening in Vegas and Florida. It’s a notable success story of a spark of passion merging with mega commercial feasibility.

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House of Blues