The Ramones

[MikeyT]

You know I like to go back in time...

Saw the Ramones at Riverparks Ampitheater back in 1990, Escape From New York tour, with Blondie, the Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison, and the Tom-Tom Club.

I can tolerate Blondie/ I'm not much on the last two; so of course I went to see the boys from Queens.
Johnny, Joey, CJ, & Marky in this case.

Anyway, the Ramones lost the coin toss and went on first. Kind of a drag for them AND us since the temp was in the 90's that day. Probably close to a 100 F. Seems like it was August.

Fortunately, the sun started going down before our heroes were through, so that made things a little bit better. Each band only had an hour to play.

I HAD to see the Ramones, but I didn't have great expectations for the show- no disrespect for the band intended, I just figured, ' Hey, their songs are really simple, how many ways can they play 'em? ', y'know? I thought they would sound pretty close to their albums.


I've got to be completely honest, here: It was a great experience.

Great, because after to listening to the Ramones for all those years (David B turned me onto them right after their 1st LP came out in '76); it's something else to finally see them in the flesh, and have eyewitness evidence that-- THEY LIVE ! It's hard for me to put into words.

First you hear the theme from The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (?), and you know what that means.
It was fun seeing them come out in their black leather jackets (remember, 95+ degrees that day), play a song or two, and then CJ looks at Johnny, meaningfully, Johnny nods, and they both take their jackets off. The whole thing so obviously choreographed, of course, that that made it cute & funny.
I love the way they considered every little thing about what they wanted to do, and how they wanted to present the band, like Johnny talked about in interviews. That wouldn't work for most bands, but it worked for the Ramones.

Joey was in great voice, sounded better than the records, which surprised me. He got down on his back and rolled around on the stage while singing, which sounds ridiculous (especially considering his body type), but that worked, too.

As for the band, they were most impressive. I should have known they would sound different live than on record. Much heavier than their studio sound. The presence of those 100 watt Marshall stacks gave the songs so much more weight and authority. The show had en 'epic' quality about it.
(We all know that having the same rig in the studio doesn't necessarily translate the live sound to record, eh?)

We were drinking plenty of beer, and maybe that was the reason we repeatedly annoyed the teenage girls sitting in front of us by chanting "1, 2, 3, 4" long after the Ramones had gone; but I think it was also out of sorrow and frustration that our boys were so quickly departed. Childish, I know, but it was quite amusing to see them turn their pretty faces around and bark "It's o-ver !". They seriously believed we were that unaware.


Now the Ramones are truly gone. RIP Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee.

1, 2, 3, 4...

[Lumpy]

Oh man, great live band. One of the best.

A bunch of good Ramones clips on YouTube, this (first 1 of 3) of the "It's Alive" (album) show. Some repeated shots and dumb 'fast cutting' (totally unnecessary) aimed at the post-MTV youngsters. Does a pretty good job showing how exciting the band was to watch live, especially early on. Try to imagine being pounded relentlessly at 110 decibels for 45 minutes, with almost no breaks in between songs to catch your breath.

[tastelikedirt]

My good friend Tom use to tell me about the time he went to see the Ramones. It was like 77/78. He lived in Wisconsin. He was in 8th grade. He stole his dad's car. Got some friend together, took acid, drove to Iowa and saw the Ramones at The Holiday Inn.

[MikeyT]

What ?
So the kid was a JD ?

[deleted account]

saw them on the Brain Drain tour.  great show, but wasn't mind-blowing.  I was more blown away by the constant 1-2-3-4 count-offs, which turned out to be exclusively Ramones.  had no way of knowing that then.  what I remember most though, was what the venue (One Step Beyond) was like.  that day it was like half high school gym, half 70s teen rec center.  that place seemed to take on different personas with every show, whether the headliner be Primus, Slayer, Badlands or Love/Hate.  I miss that li'l shit pit

[grimniggzy]

cool idea to review good old shows rather than corny new ones, haha

wish i could have seen them

[Woody]

Saw the Ramones many, many times. First time was at Iona College in New Rochelle, 1981. It was right down the street from where I lived and I was in 8th or 9th grade. Totally flipped my lid and put me on the right course for more loud music.

[Isabellacat]

saw them on the Brain Drain tour.  great show, but wasn't mind-blowing.  I was more blown away by the constant 1-2-3-4 count-offs, which turned out to be exclusively Ramones.  had no way of knowing that then.  what I remember most though, was what the venue (One Step Beyond) was like.  that day it was like half high school gym, half 70s teen rec center.  that place seemed to take on different personas with every show, whether the headliner be Primus, Slayer, Badlands or Love/Hate.  I miss that li'l shit pit

[MadJohnShaft]

I saw that Escape from New York tour, in the big giant Summerfest stage.  The Ramones went on 2nd before Debra.  Not bad, that was when Dee Dee was gone and CJ was doing the 1 2 3 4's and playing bass.

Joey stood in the middle of a ring of monitors, sort of cool.



The first Ramones show I saw in 1981-1983 or so, at the Eagles Club in Milwaukee when they were at their full power.  It must have been the Subterranean Jungle tour, because I recall them doing Psycho Therapy , but it seems more like it was the We Want the Airwaves era.  Any rate - quite the show.

[Metal and Beer]

**Caution, post contains name-dropping**   

They toured a LOT, like an average of 200 shows a year for 20 years...(!!!!?!?!!). I saw every San Diego show and several L.A. shows from "Too Tough to Die" '83/84 through Dee Dee's last tour in 1989 ("Brain Drain", I saw his second-to-last and third-to-last shows), got to hang with 'em a bunch an' stuff, got to hear the Phil Spector lunatic stories firsthand, lots of tidbits...I was an unbearable fan boy that got to hang out w/ his favorite band a bunch of times, I walked on clouds for years because of that.. LOL
   I didn't really know why at the time, but Joey and Johnny totally hated each other; when I got the background later on, their behavior to each other made much more sense..

[grimniggzy]

that's fuckin' awesome, M&B

[GodShifter]

What was the background story between Joey and Johnny (if you care to share)?

One of two things, probably: a woman or $. My bet is $.

[Lumpy]

Johnny 'stole' Joey's girlfriend and married her. Joey never got over it. It's in the movie "End of the Century" (great documentary). I had always assumed they got along great (since they kept the band going for so long). That must have been tough.

[Metal and Beer]

^ Yep. Joey wrote a hilarious song about it called "The KKK Took My Baby Away" (Johnny was a lockstep conservative, Joey was a liberal all the way) so even though he never got over it, he managed to have somewhat of a sense of humor.
   They wouldn't talk to each other, period. If they were standing right next to each other, they'd say whatever needed to be said to Monte (longtime manager/van driver)  and he'd repeat it if nec.

[Dunedin]

I saw The Ramones once, in Athens Greece around 1991. It was memorable for a whole number of reasons. My band was playing 3 gigs in Greece at the time and we arrived in Athens the day before our first gig. So the people who were looking after us asked us if we fancied going to see the Ramones that night. The rest of the band declined for one reason or another but I thought fuck it why not. On the way to the gig I'm asking my hosts (crust punks one and all) if we have tickets to get in. This elicits a lot of laughter, "we don't need tickets" comes the reply. Naively I assume they know the promoters or something.
When we get there there must be around 3-400 people milling around ticketless, one of the guys I'm with says to me " ok we're going in now" and with that these 15 or so crusties begin kicking fuck out of the security on the door and force their way in. I get dragged through the door just as security regain control. That was a bit mad I think but hey we're in now so let's go see the band. My hosts have other ideas however. We're stood in a large foyer with 2 or 3 large bolted doors to the outside ( obviously for letting people out at the end of the show) some of the door staff have retreated to these doors and now round two kicks off. Again the crust punks make a lunge for the door, several of them fighting security while one makes a leap for the bolt at the top of the door. He gets it eventually, the door is pushed open and all the fans milling about outside rush in. At this point the security pretty much give in and slink off.
So, oh yeah, The Ramones. They were great but it's not what I remember most about that night.

[grimniggzy]

"On the way to the gig I'm asking my hosts (crust punks one and all) if we have tickets to get in. This elicits a lot of laughter, "we don't need tickets" comes the reply. Naively I assume they know the promoters or something.
When we get there there must be around 3-400 people milling around ticketless, one of the guys I'm with says to me " ok we're going in now" and with that these 15 or so crusties begin kicking fuck out of the security on the door and force their way in."

Holy shit, that post was great. Thanks for sharing.