![the ramones songs 1978 the ramones songs 1978](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b2437cccc797809d60645ae6326a5566/tumblr_podfavA5Hl1u7yoe4o1_1280.jpg)
The original ‘Bruddas’.Įxcept that’s not quite true. Their secret weapon came from paying homage to the past rather than seeking to destroy it, taking their home city of New York’s classic pop legacy, stripping it down, speeding it up, then reimagining it all in a cartoon world populated by ridiculed Nazis, pinheads, perverts and punkettes called Sheena and Judy. They were first to tell rock it had got fat, overblown and dull, then present a scorching new blueprint to replace it. If anything was the ground zero of UK punk, then this was it.įorty years after their world-changing debut album, the Ramones’ standing as one of the most original and influential bands in history is beyond argument. With Johnny riffing like a buzzsaw, Joey gripping the mike-stand, and Dee Dee cavorting with his Fender Precision bass and bellowing the immortal intro “ Wun-too-free-faw!” before each high-octane assault, the likes of Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat On The Brat and Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue flew past as such velocity that, by the home stretch, there were no gaps between them, except when Dee Dee paused to lob a beer bottle he had just guzzled over his shoulder. While you’re at it, read our ranking of their best songs.An hour earlier, the four had careened through a set that wasn’t so much a collection of songs played one after the other as a sensory hit-and-run.
![the ramones songs 1978 the ramones songs 1978](https://songssmiths.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-ramones-perform-at-the-old-waldorf-club-in-january-1978-in-san-francisco-california.-photos-by-ed-perlstein-3.jpg)
Further down, watch The Ramones play in California later that same year via the Paste vault. Listen to the Ramones’ 1978 concert in New York City below. Drummer-by-default Tommy Ramone is still on-board here (he would shortly step back into producing), and his endearingly unadorned thwap-bap propulsion is still a mini-wonder. I guess we can thank the King Biscuit Flower Hour engineers for capturing this performance with such admirable clarity, allowing us to thrill anew to Joey’s every lovable faux-Brit vocalism, Dee Dee’s inevitable “one-two-three-four” kickoffs (or “ein-zwei-drei-vier” – Dee Dee had a thing about Germany), and Johnny’s breathtaking speed-king Mosrite mow-downs. Wolfgangs’ Kurt Loder writes that this set sees each of the band members at the top of his game: This set, while meaty, is a story in efficiency: In just under an hour (around 55 minutes, to be exact), the band play through 27 songs from their first three albums, Ramones, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, which had only just been released a few months prior. At the top of the set, the band skips the banter and dives right in with the amped-up “Rockaway Beach,” and the crowd is likewise fired up. 7) in 1978.Ī week after recording the live album It’s Alive in London on New Year’s Eve 1977, the Ramones played a Saturday night show at the Palladium in New York City. But, thankfully, you can still hear some of those shows, including one taped on this day (Jan. So if you weren’t present at one of those 2,000 shows-if you didn’t catch the scraggly rockers in a smoky venue sometime during the ‘70s, ‘80s or perhaps ‘90s-you never will. In the next three years, both Dee Dee and Johnny passed away, too.
![the ramones songs 1978 the ramones songs 1978](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ilI18xKe-aM/USNwtqFZCXI/AAAAAAAAJHQ/iJDuqA_wy0k/s1600/rmnz78.jpg)
A few short years after their final gig in L.A. Throughout their career, they played more than 2,000 live shows. The Ramones were, among other things, the harbingers of punk rock in America and beyond.