Marky Ramones Blitzkrieg

Andy J Ryan Apr 25, 2023

Marky Ramone’s Blitzkreig, Manning Bar – 9 April, 2009

Marky Ramone tours the timeless tunes of the utterly influential band he spent 15 years viewing from the drum stool.

The last surviving member of the definitive line up of The Ramones, drummer Mark Bell, has assembled ‘Marky Ramone’s Blitzkreig’ to revisit a classic set of the songs by the band. A lone punter tried to rouse a ‘Hey Ho, Lets Go!’ chant to lure the band on stage, yet they walked out in their own good time to a warm response.

Things started well enough with a rattling ‘Rockaway Beach’ but by the third song a rather chipper ‘Do You Want to Dance’ was abruptly stopped in its tracks as Marky objected to the ‘singer’ – who I might add, sported stringy dyed dreadlocks, ludicrously tight bondage trousers that looked like they were made out of gaffa-tape, studded wrist bands and a jacket that looked more treated PVC than leather - copped what was about the third cup of audience-thrown beer of the night. In what proved to be the most words he spoke all night, Marky got up and took the mic and invited the ‘little pussy’ who threw the beer to come onstage so he could ‘fix him up’. After a further memorandum from the drumming one not to throw any more beer and to keep it instead in our hands, the song continued, but the whole good vibe of the night was lost. Particularly when the band’s guitarist proceeded to spit huge gobbies into the crowd for the rest of the evening, which was a touch hypocritical, I thought.

When they really lost me however though was during the song ‘Posion Heart’ when ‘Michael’ the singer spent the song emotively clasping his fist and plaintively staring at the ceiling like he was a Eurovision contestant. For me, the antics of the singer – which even descended into David Lee Roth air kicks, skank jumping, heart grabbing, chest thumping and audience high fiving – provided an utterly unwarranted visual aspect to songs which are strong enough to stand on their own.

While Marky was meant to be the reason for our attendance, he barely did more than bemusedly provide the back beat. In all the press leading up to the tour Bell drove the point home that the whole point of the band was playing ‘the songs’. So we got to hear ‘Beat on the Brat, Rock’n’ Roll High School, I Just Wanna Sniff Some Glue, 53rd & 3rd, Sheena is a Punk Rocker, a cover of the Heartbreakers ‘Chinese Rock’, and even a version of ‘Wonderful World’ and a rousing finale of ‘Blitzkreig Bop’, and yes, as ‘songs’ they are inarguably great. But in 2009, some 30 years down the track, is there really any way to properly do them justice without the use of an ouija board with its own inbuilt PA system?

Sadly ‘Marky Ramone’s Blitzkreig’ showed how badly whatever you could broadly label as ‘punk' has been diluted over the past three decades. While the drumming was tip-top the rest of the band made it more about themselves trying to act appropriately ‘punk’ than doing justice to ‘the songs’. The Ramones, more than anyone in the long and illustrious history of music, were about simplicity, doing a lot with a little. Even though it wasn’t my cup of tea, it was probably the night of one girls life, the barely legal lass spending the whole show clasping a Ramones record cover to her chest and excitedly yelping along every word. So even if just that one girl goes home and picks up a guitar, or starts banging out a beat with her newly acquired drumstick, then touring ‘the songs’ of the Ramones has done its job. Their indelible influence on the music world was that all you needed was three chords and something to say to be punk, not wacky dyed hair and tatts.