THE RAMONES- Rumrunners of Oyster Bay

Written by Backstage Bruce     

    The Ramones were a great band and their music lives on. They were the originals, often cited as the first true punk rock group, releasing their first album in April 1976. 

The first punk album

    I had always wanted to see them. They performed at my college once and I did have tickets, but I couldn't get out of work. Fortunately for me, and all of us, they have played thousands of concerts so there was always a chance to catch them somewhere. For me that was a club on Long Island, that has since shut its doors, Rumrunners. The name was paying homage to the history of the area, during prohibition, when the runners would run rum all around the island with their boats. 

        I had no tickets, but... I tell a friend of mine my plans and invite her along, knowing I have no tickets whatsoever. We were just going to "wing it". She's cool, she was down. We get there and nothing. The box office is completely sold-out and there was not a scalper in sight, none. They don't do that out there in Suffolk county, culture shock. 

    So now we are just kind of walking around the area pondering our next move. We drove all the way there, we were not ready to throw in the towel and leave just yet. We needed a miracle, our hope was for someone to arrive and just happen to have an extra pair of tickets to sell us. That is where we were at.

    While we are standing there, we could hear burst of loud music. It kept happening. That is when we looked behind us and realized we were standing in front of a 8-feet tall, chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence was the patio. The burst of music we were hearing was when the door was open as people went out to the patio area to smoke. 

    I half jokingly said that we should just climb the fence. We both had Chuck's on, perfect for climbing. She shrugged her shoulders and away we went. I mentioned she was cool, she was with me on a few of these adventures, or misadventures, depending on how you look at it. 

    I thought for sure that once we got halfway up our heads would pop up over the fence and security would be on it. Thank goodness that did not happen. We get to the top and hop on over. Landing safely on the other side we did turn a few heads, nobody said a word. They were probably wishing they had done the same exact thing.

    We immediately get our bearings, locate the door and walk right through it. We were inside and the show hadn't started yet. The music was coming from the DJ spinning. We did it! We make our way over to the bar to get beer and it was mobbed, we get our beer and the show starts.

Joey and Johnny

        That night three out of four of the original members were there. Joey on vocals, Johnny on guitar. (Those two would be with the band from start to finish.) Dee Dee was still on bass then and that night on drums was Richie Ramone. 

A drummer that can sing, Richie Ramone

    They sounded great. The audience slam danced all night long with so much energy. It was infectious. We went right up front to the mosh pit and jumped in, quite raucous. The band played about 30 3-minute songs rapid fire. Incredible, they didn't let up. I loved the entire show. I recognized about 10 songs: 'Blitzkrieg Bop', 'Teenage Lobotomy', 'Rock & Roll High School', 'I Wanna Be Sedated', 'Sheena Is A Punk Rocker', 'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg', 'Rockaway Beach', '53rd & 3rd.' etc...

 

   The entire night was an absolute blast, I'm glad we decided to jump over the fence to get in which in itself is pretty damn punk rock.