Indeed, the hordes of musicians and fans who converged on Cleveland during Labor Day weekend for the museum's opening let it be known that they had come to hail rock and roll, not to bury it. "Just because they've put up the bricks and mortar doesn't mean the music has been interred," said John Fogerty, whose rare performance of two Creedence Clearwater Revival classics was one of many highlights in the 7-hour concert that capped the opening celebrations. Backstage, Brown greeted rock luminaries in his dressing-room trailer, and Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen stood in the wings watching their fellow rock icons work out onstage. While Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora and wife Heather Locklear smooched and cruised the backstage compound in a golf cart, other rockers gathered in reception rooms to schmooze and ogle. "There were a lot of legends sitting right next to you," marveled Guns n' Roses guitarist Slash, who had flown in to perform one Jimi Hendrix tune with Boz Skaggs. "I was like, 'Wow!' I mean, I got to meet Aretha Franklin!"

The event was the culmination of an idea Moncler Outlet hatched 12 years ago by Atlantic Records' Ahmet Ertegun and Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner, among others. "My concept was that this would be a noncommercial endeavor to recognize the people who were responsible for what became the most popular music in the world, of all time," says Ertegun, 72. But early predictions that the museum would be opened by 1989 proved optimistic. "Doing it half-assed wouldn't have been right," says Wenner, 49. "We could have done this as a commercial venture, and it would have been up years ago. It would probably be in Orlando."

Chosen instead was Cleveland, where the term rock and roll was reputedly coined by famed deejay Alan Freed. Inspired by a grassroots movement of Cleveland rock fans, a delegation led by Mayor George Voinovich, now Ohio's governor, traveled to New York City in 1985 to strike a deal with Ertegun's Hall of Fame Foundation for the museum, beating out Memphis and 20 other suitors. "They made this fantastic offer of money, demonstrated enormous local citizen support, and they kept after us," says Wenner. "The Rock Hall was really a feather in the cap for this city," says Cleveland deejay Jeff Kinzbach, who urged listeners to support a massive fund-raising effort eventually joined by local and state governments and major www.moncleronsales.com corporations. "We never gave up," says Kinzbach. "We always kept pushing."