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I first got into the Ramones in 1984 through my new circle of skateboarder friends and they quickly became one of my favorite groups. I saw them live in 1988 and 1989 and the shows were non-stop blistering action. I am honored to show portrait paintings of the four original Ramones at the Queens Museum exhibition Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk, up April 10 through July 31 and then moving to the Grammy Museum in L.A. in September. This is my first portrait of Tommy Ramone, the original drummer and sometimes producer for the band, which I created as a painting to complement the other three for the museum. I was pleased with the results and decided to make this into a screen print based off of the fine art painting which I’m releasing in two colorways – a black and gold version and a black and red version.
I’ve seen the Ramones three times in my life, but the show in the fall of 1988 at the Living Room in Providence, R.I. was the most intense. The Living Room should have held 500 bodies, but in Providence the clubs paid off the cops and there were easily 1,000 people in the venue that night.
Jane’s Addiction opened the show and raised the energy level, and when the Ramones came on everyone was going nuts. I was positioned close to the front of the stage and the crowd surged forward compressing everyone so tightly that I thought my ribs would be crushed; I could actually pick my feet off the ground without using my hands and be elevated by the fans around me.
The Ramones played non-stop, no breaks between songs for about two hours. The band was super tight. Johnny leaned into the crowd and didn’t even take his leather jacket off for an hour even though it was sweaty as hell in there. Joey’s hair was in his eyes but he stayed planted in front of the mic and sounded great. Providence loves the Ramones, so the energy never waned.
At certain points of the concert I felt like I was going to suffocate or be crushed, but I refused to give up my front and center spot. It may seem weird to say I was having the time of my life while fighting for my life, but that’s the only way I can describe that show.
-Shepard
