The Ramones

It's Alive 1974-1996

[Rhino Home Video] 
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The single most thrilling moment of live musical performance that I ever witnessed occurred on the last night of July 1981, when The Ramones bounded onstage at Atlanta’s Agora Ballroom. With their gigantic red-white-and-blue eagle logo towering over the drum kit, the trailblazing New York punk quartet seized their instruments and blasted into “Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio?” with the force of a floorboarded GTO.

The Ramones had already won my heart forever with their awe-inspiring double LP It’s Alive, still generally considered one of the greatest live albums ever recorded, but this was several years later and a couple of glitzy over-produced pop records down the line. Who would have dreamed that tonight they’d sound louder, harder, leaner and, most of all, better?

Not only did that evening’s rendition of “Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio?” sound nothing like the schmaltzy Spectorized studio recording, but it was also more powerful than anything on It’s Alive. I was standing near the right side of the stage just a few yards from Dee Dee, and to my jaw-dropping astonishment he played the melody from the album’s saxophone break on the neck of his bass, never missing a note, while sweat poured like faucets from the cuffs of his leather jacket.

The bottom-heavy beat from Dee Dee’s big Fender Precision struck my chest like a runaway jackhammer, literally batting me up into the air. I felt as if I was surfing a 15-foot wave, firing two .50-caliber machine guns, and having a full-body orgasm, all at the same time. From that moment forward, I never missed any chance to see The Ramones.

It’s now been over a decade since their 1996 farewell show and, frankly, I’ve been absolutely dying for another fix. I’ve replayed the memory of July 31, 1981 over and over in my head thousands of times, always hoping that someday, somehow I’d find some way to experience it again, but none of The Ramones’ plentiful (and largely redundant) live CDs have quite captured the spirit, the ambience, or the incredible punch of that unforgettable moment at The Agora when Dee Dee ripped into that “Do You Remember” lick.

Rhino Home Video’s Ramones – It’s Alive 1974-1996 thus arrives like the answer to this devoted fan’s most feverish prayer. Accurately billed as “The Ultimate Double Live DVD,” it assembles a head-spinning volley of music sampled from over 30 different concerts, which collectively span the band’s entire 22-year career. It’s both educational and astonishing to watch all four hours of it in sequence, beginning with Disc 1’s crude but priceless black-and-white videotape document of the group stumbling awkwardly through several songs at CBGB in September 1974, when they’d been together for less than year. Afterwards, fast forward to 1977 and see how quickly they evolved into a musical force of volcanic power and military precision.

For many fans, the crown jewel in the two-disc set will be the December ’77 show at The Rainbow in London. Presented almost in its entirety (only “Rockaway Beach,” “Teenage Lobotomy,” and “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” are missing, due to deterioration of the original movie-film elements), this is the concert from which the bulk of the legendary It’s Alive album was drawn. Seeing the long-missing video after so many decades is a wondrous treat (Get a load of that guy in the audience who’s wearing a Gilligan hat!) but it also comes as something of a revelation, since it’s soon apparent where the classic live album carefully substituted alternate performances to cover up less-then-ideal moments from The Rainbow. Watch, for example, how Joey runs out of breath and stops singing during “Pinhead.”

Other rare highlights of the package showcase guitarist Johnny, who forsakes his trademark white Mosrite for a black one on “I Want You Around” at the San Francisco Civic Center and uses a gold Rickenbacker for “Loudmouth” on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. You can even catch him wearing a blue “Agora Atlanta” T-shirt when he hits an unusual errant note in the first chord of “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School” during a 1980 appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

The underappreciated middle and late-period Ramones, Richie and C-Jay, also get their due here. Richie’s aboard for a raging rendition of “Warthog” that shows off his vocal chops as well as his drumming. C-Jay shines during a sidesplitting excerpt from a 1996 Buenos Aires gig, where he switches the lyrics of “R.A.M.O.N.E.S” so that “C-Jay now, hit the gas/Hear Marky kick some ass” concludes instead with “Mark takes it up the ass!!”

But for me, the Holy Grail segment of Ramones – It’s Alive 1974-1996 is Disc 2’s nine-song excerpt from their set at the 1982 Us Festival in San Bernadino. Especially unusual because it shows them playing outdoors in bright daylight, it also offers far and away the best picture quality and sound (mixed in Dolby 5.1 Surround) of any live gig in the whole package. Filmed just over a year after my own all-time favorite Ramones concert, it even opens with “Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio?”

And, yes yes yes, it does feature Dee Dee playing the horn riff on his bass. The third time he does it (about two and half minutes into the performance) there’s even a priceless medium close-up in which you can observe his fingering on the Fender’s fretboard, exactly like I’d remembered it from 26 long years ago. Now all I need is a white Mosrite and an eagle logo tattoo, and I can die happy.