LONG LIVE ROCK: One lesson from the Met exhibit is that rock matters — or at least that it mattered.

The instruments of Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, the Edge, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and many other rock musicians make for a thrilling collection (running through October 1) that has drawn upwards of 200,000 visitors to the Met. Curators were expecting the crowd to consist mainly of Baby Boomers but have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm shown by young adults, teens, and even children. As I was departing on Wednesday, the galleries were filling with fascinated high-school students. None of them were looking at their phones. Rock is not dead.

The power of the display hits you straight away, as forcefully as the opening chords of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The guitar upon which Berry played them serves as the introduction to the exhibition, mounted on a plinth that cheekily refers to the similar ones upon which the facing Roman statues rest in the adjacent hall. Berry, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix: contemporary analogues for the Roman gods.

Read the whole thing, which is certainly worth a visit if you’re headed to the Big Apple. I reviewed the Met’s exhibit in April, accompanied with plenty of photos, at the PJ Lifestyle section: The Met ‘Plays It Loud.’