Gig Reviews August Gigs C.J Ramone – Swansea, Sin City - 14th August 2009
| C.J Ramone – Swansea, Sin City - 14th August 2009 |
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| Written by Dom Daley |
| Wednesday, 19 August 2009 17:30 |
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 Ok its Friday night, and I'm in a smelly club in Swansea, and someone who used to stand on a stage and play with punk rock royalty is in da house. Its well documented that CJ Ramone was hugely responsible for keeping the Ramones together in their latter years, and had to fill some pretty massive boots when Dee Dee departed. Tonight he was in my hometown and doing his business, meaning playing punk rock big boys style. After the 3 totally forgettable support bands, the empty club filled up (uh not). I don't want to dwell on a poor turn out, but it does piss me off when decent bands tour and people don't turn up. Sin City was packed to the rafters for a poxy rock disco after this show, and certain individuals had the bare faced cheek to turn up in Ramones shirts!  1,2,3,4 CJ and his band hit the stage and were off. It was classic after classic after classic, an we lucky enough to witness this got treated to a short sharp set of tight in your face Ramones choons. I couldn't care less about the merits of CJ playing his old band mates’ songs, or it being called a tribute night, or whatever people chose to call it. Because you’re not going to hear these songs played anywhere else with such authority or merit.The set list included the usual suspects of ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’, ‘Pinhead’, ‘Commando’, ‘Beat on the Brat’, ‘Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment’, and ‘Cretin Hop’, with Daniel Rey (Guitar) taking on vocals for Poison Heart (in my opinion the last great Ramones track). Now Daniel might look like he should have been doing the rounds with fat Tony and knocking off dons in the Sopranos but check out his musical pedigree. Daniel Rey has produced and played on some classic albums, from The Ramones to Circus of Power  (who he also played guitar for in the recent reunion shows), the Misfits to Gluecifer. Daniel also played on Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom and had a band with Dave Wyndorf long before he was a Space Lord, and let’s not forget the happiest drummer I’ve seen in a long time Brant Bjork (ex Kyuss) who looked like he’d just landed his dream job mouthing every word of every song, but enough music geek knowledge its back to the music.The set was short and to the point but that was always what it was about all killer, no filler. We even had a bit of banter from the two Noo Yawkers as they did a classic Spinal Tap moment and declared how happy they were to be here in England (oops) and dedicating “Glad to see you GO” to the late king of pop Mr Michael Jackson. Thanks for the fantastic night CJ now come back to the UK and do a Bad Chopper tour and make us diehards even happier.
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