I made the mistake of opening an email late in the afternoon on Friday, involving a subject I knew would fire me up in a negative way. And sure enough, that's what happened, leading me to stay in the office long after everyone else had left on this holiday weekend. I needed something to flush the thought from my mind. Tequila, music and a cigar would help me forget, at least temporarily.
First up was the Ramones, performing live in Utica NY on November 14, 1977. On that date I was only a couple hundred mile west of them, down interstate highway 90, attending SUNY Buffalo. At that time, music was far from my mind, something I'd listen to just for a distraction from studies. I believe I saw Meatloaf that year, one of my first concerts ever.
This show is an excellent soundboard recording, during which they perform 18 songs in less than 40 minutes. There are times during the show when they remind me of a punked out Beach Boys. This show took place shortly after they released Rocket to Russia, their third studio album, as was noted on stage this evening.
Wikipedia describes then as follows:
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York in 1974, often cited as the first punk rock group. Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and the United Kingdom.
All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", though none of them were actually related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell show and disbanded. By a little more than eight years after the breakup, the band's three founding members—lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone—had all died.
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What I was really waiting for this Friday night was Public Image Limited, their show at the Top Rank Suite in Brighton, UK on November 2, 1983. A great sounding recording. "Stop gobbing you cheap little turd" exclaims John Lydon after their first number, something he'd say countless times over the years to get the audience to stop spitting at him, a habit that came out of their Sex Pistols days. Elsewhere during the show he taunts the audience and tries to make them boo loudly. He has real stage presence!
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