The first time that I truly was blessed, I saw The Ramones for the first time. It was November 1977 at the Aragon Ballroom, Chicago. Then - rejoice! - they came back and played the same place with The Runaways the next January after. The 77 show they opened for Iggy Pop. First for me with Iggy too. We went to see Iggy and got blown away by a band that I may not have even heard of before. The Ramones. I would do anything to go back to either of those days, right now! Then of course we went to every single show that we could in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs from that point on. They played Chicago a lot in earlier years.This one I think I missed having never seen them at an amusement park. No one like them ever again.
I was there that night and I didn't know who they were, but when they started to play I fell in love with their sound. I remember the clothes many of the kids wore and one girl in particular was wearing striped witchiepoo hose. Thank you so much for posting this film. No one believed me when I told them that the Ramones played at Old Chicago.
I was at the Old Chicago show! I'll never forget that night. The audience was told, in so many words, to remain seated during the concert. As soon as The Ramones hit the stage, every folding chair was emptied, and the audience was in complete happy mayhem with the band. We were in the bleachers, what a great ringside seat to this!
My cousin actually drove Limousine for the Ramones while they were in Chicago at this time, drove them to and from the shows, to the after show parties, got all thier autographs. He said they were nice guys. 👍
Was NOT at the concert but brings back memories from a kid out in the sticks going to Old Chicago. Anyone familiar with Chicago and it's surrounding 'burbs knows this place was out in the middle of friggin nowhere and was not easy to get to--especially before the advent of I-355. Even as a kid I kinda had the feeling of what's this place doing out here. It definitely was the antithesis of "if you build it, they will come." Kind of sad, but glad I had the opportunity to go a couple times.
At Old Chicago they had a lot of metal folding chairs on the main floor. The house lights were on. People gathered for the band sitting quietly in the chairs. The moment the Ramones hit their first note there was a mad rush up to the stage with people getting all tripped up on the chairs folding like big steel mouse traps
From 1978 to 1982 they did awesome performances, they became better musicians but still had the agressive behavior from beginning RIP Dee Dee, Joey and Johnny
Yeah, the '76-'78 stuff is the classic Ramones live sound, but the energy and tightness was through the roof for the '79-'82 shows, and Joey became a better singer after End Of The Century. If you listen to bootlegs, the FASTEST shows were probably after this when Richie came in, but honestly I think the songs lost too much of their "pulse" in favor of blasting through the set as messily as necessary. At least the guitars still had that "NaaaNanaNanaNana" sound here in 1979 despite the blistering speed. They actually calmed down when Marky came back to replace Richie, but still never quite recaptured this classic sound. Some people really like the 90's live sound, and that's great, but again... the faster songs didn't have the pulse or the groove anymore.
@@ConnerMainChannel personally, i liked the ultra fast loco versions...they turn into a whole new beast... The first time i heard Markys closed hat 8th notes(ex. Shock Treatment from Loco Live) i couldnt believe how much more energy it brought to the songs...true,the Ritchie era brought that whole fast, well oiled machine together, its a great era , he definetly did what he possibly could to those songs, and it works! i wish there was more pro audio from that era..it could become my favorite.. His style seemed more spontaneous....really I can dig it all.... There will always be something that "gets me" in each era...thats what makes the Ramones so great...from the demo version of "Chainsaw" to "Questioningly" to "I got alot to say"..............i cant remember now.......
@@jaredbrown1662 Honestly, it would just be good to have more really nice live recordings of all the "eras" for their sound. Usually a good recording of any good show is what really lets you hear the merits of that time and say "wow, what a band." I wish lousy (or even acceptable) recording/mix quality wasn't so capable of ruining the POWER a band's sound can have. It really peeved off Johnny, because he KNEW they had an explosive sound on stage at a real show. Many recordings just kill the magic, either with bad mixing, or general poor fidelity. Even the classic era has a very limited number of bangin' recordings, and the most famous ones could have still been a bit better if audio engineers of the time knew what to do with the Ramones. A lot of recordings (and even albums) try to calm down the sound of the band by making the drums sound pop-ish and light, the guitars quieter and not so overbearing, and the vocals very present on top of the mix. That's how every artist was mixed! The reality is that many people simply didn't understand that the loudness and the rawness of the band needed to be embraced, not hidden. The drums should POUND. The guitars are supposed to be a harmonic wall of sound, not a thin drone in the background. Joey's vocals are hugely important, but he's not a solo artist who needs to sit on top of a backing track. There's a reason the seemingly lousy 1975 Arturo's Loft performance has a certain charm. Ramones music was hard hitting stuff, and it needs to sound BIG and LOUD like a stage show to come across the way the band intended to be heard. At least this live radio recording has all the instruments occupying good volumes and frequencies relative to one another.
I have to diddo the last comment... Thanks for posting this awesome video... I was living in Bolingbrook at the time and we decided to go see the Ramones that night at Old Chicago... The concert was "INTENSE" from start to finish and now is one of our [my wife and i] favorite concert memory... We were just poking around You Tube looking for Ramones clips. When we stumbled on this video - it made my fricken day. Awesome.... Now if i can only find a video clip from the Captian Beefheart concert at Tut's in Chicago... Ha! Thanks much for posting this.
+Michael Pietrenka I was at the Beefheart concert at Tuts, too. I stood in front of the Captain the entire concert hoping that he would give me one of his impromptu drawings. It was amazing. I don't recall anyone with video or even a still image camera. It would be awesome if something were to emerge. I never thought that THIS gig had been recorded (I was at the Old Chicago gig as well).
My cousin worked at Old Chicago. My uncle moved to Boilingbrook when there was hardly a home built there. Old Chicago for a kid was like Willy Wonka...loud as heck tho inside
To anyone who attended the Old Chicago concert, if you stuck around after the lights came up you should remember the t-shirt road case incident. A large group had gathered around this rather large road case that was closed in hopes of buying a Ramones t-shirt. After about 15 minutes a few fans got impatient at the front of the crowd and someone unlatched the case. T-shirts began spilling out and the crowd went into a frenzy grabbing their "souvenir". One of the Ramones' roadies came running over like a bolt of lightning to stop the mad scene. He was not pleased. Don't blame him.
I never realized they played at Old Chicago. The indoor amusemnt park i never got to go to as a kid. But now, I kinda remember the commercials. Damn. This is when Sha-Na -Na was huuuge, too.
Jeffrey Ross Hyman, más conocido como Joey Ramone (Nueva York, Estados Unidos; 19 de mayo de 1951-ib., 15 de abril de 2001), fue un músico estadounidense, cofundador, compositor y vocalista de la banda de punk rock Ramones desde su formación en 1974 hasta su disolución en 1996.[1]
In '79 I saw the Ramones as an opening band. They toured with of all bands Black Sabbath. Wrong crowd at the time to play in front of. Needless to say it did not go well.
There may be more. I'm looking to do an HD transfer of the original footage soon. As I remember, I did a video transfer in 1980. I may have added more after the initial transfer. I'll be looking into it soon. The original Super 8 film looks pretty good. More detail than the video. I'd also like to EQ the sound a bit. Stay tuned!
And yes. I believe the B'Ginnings (actually Schaumburg, Il) gig was in Feb. The Old Chicago (actually Bolingbrook, Il was in October. I should have kept the ticket stubs!
