Text by: Dan Roepke
Photos by: John Roepke.
Thanks.
Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg:
March 28th Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ, USA (Tickets 20 US$).
March 29th Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, PA, USA (Tickets 15 US$)
March 28th Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ, USA:
The two opening bands in Hoboken, New Jersey were The Fiendz and Stellar Corpses. Maxwell's venue holds 200 people and it looked very close to a sellout. The stage is small and pretty dark with only a few spotlights hitting the band. There is no backstage, so Marky and the band had to walk through the crowd to get to the stage. With the smaller stage, Michale Graves was not able to jump around as much as he usually does, but still gave a great performance. Back again on the tour were Crazy Joe on guitar and Graham vanderVeen on bass, who were very good as well. After all these years, Marky still does a great job banging on the drums.
When it was time for the encore, the band didn't leave the stage. Marky said: .we're gonna do some encores for you, but there's nowhere to go to wipe off, so we're going to continue right now.. The band started playing at around 10:20 PM and played for an hour and 15 minutes.
Around 20 minutes after the show ended, I spotted Marky leaving through the bar to go outside. He got into the passenger seat of a Mercedes. Crazy Joe got in the back seat. Maxwell's is a very nice club and a good place to watch bands.
March 29th Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, PA, USA
The Sherman Theater show had three opening bands: Chem D, Toxic Sunshine, and Stellar Corpses. Stellar Corpses really stood out from the other two bands. They are a band out of Santa Cruz, CA, USA. Michale Graves sang on one of the songs on their new album. They play hard/punk rock and are opening for Marky on all five of his east coast shows. You should check out their website: stellarcorpses.com. The Sherman Theater is a pretty big place, and I would say there were around 400-450 people there to see the show. The stage was very big, so it gave Michale Graves a lot of room to move around. He sounded great once again. Crazy Joe and Graham gave it everything they had and Marky was flawless as usual.
The set lists for the two nights was the same, except for one of the encores at the Sherman Theater show where Michale Graves came out and played acoustic guitar and sang three songs by himself: Descending Angel, Fiend Club, and Saturday Night.
(Some songs in encores were Misfits songs).
Michale said it was great to see so many young kids in the crowd the last couple of nights. He said fans have been coming for a long time to see Marky and his brothers play, but it is good that they are now bringing their kids to keep the Ramones alive. Michale said when we play out of the country, there's a certain spirit and passion that is not present in this country(USA) when it comes to music, but with the Ramones, it's amazing.
Marky and the band went on stage at 10:20 PM and played for around 1 1/2 hours. The only thing I saw for sale at the merchandise table on both nights from Marky was a poster that was signed by the four members of the band. I am not sure why he didn't have any shirts for sale. I am sure that many in the crowd would have bought one. The only thing I can think of is that he already shipped his merchandise to Europe for his shows coming up over there.
All in all, it was a great two days.
Set list for both show:
1) Rockaway Beach
2) Teenage Lobotomy
3) Psycho Therapy
4) Do You Wanna Dance?
5) I Don't Care
6) Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
7) Havana Affair
8) Commando
9) I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
10) Beat On The Brat
11) 53rd & 3rd12) Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
13 Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
14) Rock And Roll High School
15) Oh Oh I Love Her So
16) She's The One
17) Judy Is A Punk
18) I Believe in Miracles
19) The KKK Took My Baby Away
20) Pet Sematary
21) Chinese Rock
22) I Wanna Be Sedated
23) I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
24) Pinhead
ENCORE (BAND, BOTH SHOWS):
25) I Just Want To Have Something To Do
26) Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio?
27) I Don't Want To Grow Up
28) Cretin Hop
29) R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
ENCORE (MICHAEL GRAVES):
(Michale Graves acoustic at Sherman Theater only)
30) Descending Angel
31) Fiend Club
32) Saturday Night
ENCORE: (BAND, BOTH SHOWS):
33) Dig Up Her Bones
34) When We Were Angels
35) Have You Ever Seen The Rain
36) What A Wonderful World
37) Blitzkrieg Bop
Text by: Dan Roepke
Photos by: John Roepke. (You can see John in upper photo collage).
Thanks Dan and John. (You can see Dan in lower photo collage).