In an obvious choice for the city of Rockford, a 62-foot version of the checkered Cheap Trick Hamer Standard guitar is going up outside the Hard Rock Casino Rockford ahead of its Aug. 29 opening.
Rock band Cheap Trick hails from Rockford, and Rick Nielsen, who made his career playing Hamer guitars, still resides in the city.
The installation is one of the final preparations before the 175,000-square-foot complex – which features 1,300 slot machines, 50 table games, a poker room, a sportsbook, and a 2,000-seat live entertainment venue – opens at 7801 E. State St. just off I-90.
Giant guitar took 5 months to create
Hard Rock Casino Rockford will be the newest permanent retail casino in the state, while residents wait to see if lawmakers legalize Illinois online casinos next year.
The Hard Rock: An Opening Act, a temporary casino that operated for 33 months before the new casino’s opening, closed its doors earlier this week.
The Rockford Register-Star reports that the sculpture was “delivered in four sections by truck wrapped in plastic to the casino,” following workers at Baltimore-based Gable, a sign and visual communications company, crafting it over five months.
The only thing that might have made it more Nielsen-branded – but much harder to pull off for Gable – was to model it after one of the specialty five-neck Hamers he played throughout his career.
Nielsen played key role in Hamer guitar brand
Started in 1973, Cheap Trick is best known for hits like “Dream Police,” “Surrender,” and Vic Damone of Fast Times At Ridgemont High scalping Cheap Trick tickets while extolling “the magnetism of Robin Zander and the charisma of Rick Nielsen.”
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.
Guitar World reported that the Hamer Standard replica going up outside the casino is “a nice full-circle moment for Nielsen, who, back in 2019, strongly advocated for the Hard Rock brand to come to Rockford.”
Nielsen was also instrumental in the Hamer brand launching in the mid-1970s. He revealed in a Premier Guitar interview in 2009 just how central his role was.
“It goes back to around 1973. I got a call from Paul Hamer, who knew of me as a guitar collector. He wanted a Sunburst Les Paul Standard, and I had one to sell. It was pretty faded out as I recall. He gave me $2,500 for it. My wife and I were living in Philadelphia at the time, and she was pregnant with our first child, so that money allowed us to return to Illinois. Paul sold that guitar, and that became the working capital that helped start Hamer.”
He also shared in the interview that some of the Hamer guitars he owned now reside in various Hard Rock Cafes around the world.
The Hamer Standard replica adorning Hard Rock Rockford isn’t the tallest Hard Rock replica guitar. That’s the 112-foot Peavy HP Signature outside the Hard Rock Biloxi. This model, however, with the checkered inlay, and classic angular Hamer shape, may be the most recognizable of any Hard Rock guitar.
Opening will include guitar smash and Rick Nielsen show
The Aug. 29 opening ceremony will include a ceremonial guitar smashing established at past Hard Rock openings. There will also be musical performances all weekend, including by Nielsen’s band, The Nielsen Trust on Thursday, Aug. 29.
American Music Award-winner Akon will perform on Aug. 30. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Joan Jett and the Blackhearts will perform on Aug. 31, and country music star Brad Paisley will play Sept. 1.
