On Wednesday night, John Rzeznik and Robby Takac from the Goo Goo Dolls found themselves surrounded by people who now knew much, much more than their name and songs.
Scrapbooks from Takac's mother, the original guitar and notes that Rzeznik used to figure out the alternative tuning to their hit song "Name," and more filled the Buffalo History Museum's new exhibit "Long Way Home: 40 Years of the Goo Goo Dolls."
"I don't think Robbie and I in 1986 would ever have imagined that there would be like a retrospective thing about us because we were going to implode any second, at any time," Rzeznik said to a crowd of VIPs at the museum.
"And that was our plan. Like you're planning on that," Takac added.
"We were going to go out in a ball of flame," Rzeznik said, joking.
"I mean, this is amazing," Takac followed up. "Like, you know, this really makes us feel like part of this community, and you know that our band's done something that I don't know was worthy of being in a situation like this, and that's just crazy to us."
The exhibit not only shows the band's history but allows guests to interact with it. Anthony Greco, the director of exhibits & interpretive planning for the museum, spoke with BTPM at the exclusive members-only preview Wednesday night. He says the exhibit has a little something for everyone by leaning into analog formats and nostalgia.
"There's almost like this nostalgic wave that's coming through and hitting younger generations, where we're saying like 'slow down. We want tactile history. We want to be able to push play on a cassette player and not just tap something on a screen or have a AI tell us what to listen to.' So, we leaned into that and hoped that we could like interest the young generation in that," Greco said. "And in an odd way, that also is appealing to you know Gen X, millennials, and so on and so forth."
Grecco gave the examples of their "cozy corner" with 70's and 80's furniture and a DVD player playing old footage; a focus on mixtapes in the exhibit, as well as guitars tuned in the alternative tunings the band used for different songs, which guests can strum and guess which song they go with.
Melissa Brown, the museum's executive director, says she hopes the exhibit reminds visitors that pieces of their lives may become history someday, too.
"This is epic because it's the Goo Goo Dolls, but I hope it's a gateway [for] people to realize, like, 'I have something in my closet, you know, I have something in my attic, and you know my story connects to the continuum of Buffalo.' Like we're all connected people," Brown said. "And then beyond Buffalo, Goo Goo Dolls takes us beyond Buffalo, so, you know, it's just thrilling."
The exhibit is on show through next September in the museum's lower level. More information can be found here.
Copyright 2026 BTPM NPR