On Saturday 2nd February 1991, I saw Ratcat supporting Ramones at the Silver Jubilee Pavilion, part of the Claremont Showground in Perth, Western Australia, so this must be a sign that the blogosphere is compelling me to tell all about it, right?
Luckily for me, this was one of the few periods in my life that I kept a journal. At this point in time, I was sharing a flat in Perth with a Japanese guy called Kenji aka Ken and in fact most of my social circle were Japanese people on work or student visas...which is exactly the point of travelling several thousand miles to work in and travel Australia, I hear you say. That bit is important later on, though. As is the fact that I wrote my account of the gig the following afternoon.
I will at this point offer a warning, in case you're settling down to read this with a nice cup of tea and a Sunday brunch (no, not that one). The following account contains strobe lights and projectile vomiting.
The Perth show was Ramones' ninth and final date of their Australian tour and, having played Melbourne the night before, their only gig on this side of the continent. I liked Ramones a lot and I'd hear their music a fair bit going out and at friends' houses. That said, the only album that I was really familiar with was End Of The Century, produced by Phil Spector and featuring their sole UK Top 10 hit in 1980, the focus of JC's post this week. Ratcat were an Australian band who had scored a Top 10 hit and lost of radio play at home with That Ain't Bad from their EP, Tingles, which I wrote about last year. None of my Japanese friends were remotely interested in seeing either Ramones or Ratcat so I decided to go anyway, shelling out $23.50 for a ticket. The exchange rate back then was hovering around 1 GBP = 2.50 AUD so this worked out at less than a tenner for the gig.
Saturday got off to a fairly leisurely start, by all accounts. I walked into Perth city centre, had a browse in Dada Records (still there, yay!) and picked up The Fad Gadget Singles on CD, before a "beef rice bowl" for lunch at Mr. Samurai (which had clearly gone downhill by 2008 and is now no more). After a some more shopping, I went home for a bit before heading back out and onto a train to the Claremont Showground, about 30 minutes' ride. Luck was on my side as the platform ticket machine was kaput and I got a free ride.
Despite the grand sounding name, the Silver Jubilee Pavilion at the Claremont Showground was one of those generic conference-style spaces neighbouring a speedway track. According to t'internet, the pavilion has capacity for three thousand people. There was a healthy crowd when I arrived and whilst I was quite near the front for the whole of the gig, I don't remember there being anything like that many people there on the night.
This is where things start to get even more hazy. The short description of Ratcat in my journal is that they "were quite good", the "sound quality was high" and "they were an effective live band" Really makes you feel like you were there, doesn't it?
Ramones don't fare much better in my written recollection, I'll warn you. What I can tell you - because I looked it up elsewhere - is that the line-up on the night was Joey and Johnny (obviously), Marky (drums from 1978-1983, rejoined in 1987) and C.J. (bass, joined in 1989). The current album at the time was Brain Drain, Ramones' eleventh offering from 1989. Apart from Pet Sematary, recorded for the ropey film adaptation of the Stephen King novel, I wasn't at all familiar with either the album or most of Ramones' mid-late 1980s material.
I note that the band came on to the strains of Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Band And The Ugly, all dry ice and heavy strobe lighting effects, before launching straight into the first song. As you might expect, there were no slow numbers or much in the way of between song banter. Apart from an occasional pause for a drink, pretty much every song was bridged with a hurriedly cried "1-2-3-4!" and off we went again. The band crashed through thirty-odd songs and two encores in around an hour and a half and suddenly that was it, Morricone back on the PA system and the house lights back on.
Despite not owning any Ramones albums circa 1991, I was surprised by how many songs that I recognised, given the sheer volume of songs that they played that night. Perhaps less surprising though when, on reflection, nearly two thirds of the set came from the first five albums from 1976's self-titled debut (8 songs) to 1980's End Of The Century. I was particularly happy that Ramones played a storming version of Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?, barely recognisable from the album version and one of many highlights of the show. I was a sweating, exhausted, exhilarated mess by the end of the gig and left on a real high.
Unlike February gigs in England, where a walk from a hot, steamy venue to catch a bus or train would usually skirt the edge of hypothermia, it was a balmy, late summer night in Perth. I got back to the flat well before midnight and this is where I made my fatal error. What I should have done is just gone straight to bed, content with the memory of a great night out. Instead, I saw that the light was on in my friend Kazu's flat and I decided to pop my head round the door to say hello. This was nothing unusual: Kazu's place was invariably the social epicentre of our group and Saturdays especially would guarantee that some gathering was going on, usually involving food and alcohol.
Kazu and Ken, my flatmate, were there together with another couple of friends who lived in the same apartment block, Yumie and Takahashi. Having crossed the threshold, I realised that I'd become extremely dehydrated on my journey home. I managed a glass of lukewarm tap water but at the insistence of my friends this was swiftly replaced with vodka. A variety of Japanese snacks wrapped in rice paper were also offered up, very tasty but which would frankly do little to stop the inevitable catch up with my drunken companions. Worse, the frequent top ups were beginning to alternate between vodka and white wine.
Now I don't know about you, but my twenty year-old self used to follow this sage advice on mixing drinks from a Goth pal from Bristol, given several years previously:
Beer on wine, feel fine
Wine on beer, feel queer
I can only assume that I had then passed out in a drunken stupor before my Goth guide could impart their wisdom on mixing wine and spirits. So on this night in an apartment with a group of increasing animated friends having a great time, I carried on anyway and my fate was sealed.
All I could recall when writing the account the following afternoon was that I eventually drifted (swayed?) back to my flat on the next floor, crashed into bed and very shortly after started throwing up uncontrollably before I'd even managed to get back out of bed. It was all over by the time I made it to the bathroom so I stripped the bed, had a long, cold shower and went back to sleep on the bare mattress. I noted in my journal (I hope with a self-disgusted grimace) that the mattress still felt wet and I discovered the following morning that I'd been lying in liquid vomit. Presumably my dignity and self-respect had also gone swirling down the plug hole when I took a shower.
I spent the following morning scrubbing the mattress clean, airing the open plan flat and trying to rid the space of the disgusting smell of bile. Fortunately for me, Ken had passed out drunk on the sofa in Kazu's flat downstairs and was therefore spared this sorry scene until things had returned to normal. As I noted in my closing sentence, "it could have been worse".
What a rock 'n' roll lifestyle, eh? By comparison, last week's Blancmange gig was over by 10.30pm and I was home by 11.00pm with little chance of finding myself sleeping in my own vomit. More importantly, I had a brilliant time and I remember every second of it.
Ramones and Ratcat were both brilliant too, I know it. I just can't remember most of it...!
Thanks to those lovely contributors at Setlist, I've been able to recreate the Perth show as one continuous Dubhed selection. No breaks, no intervals, just an hour and a quarter of Ramones brilliance. Enjoy!
1) Durango 95 (1984)
2) Teenage Lobotomy (1977)
3) Psycho Therapy (1983)
4) Blitzkrieg Bop (Single Version) (1976)
5) Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? (Album Version) (1980)
6) I Believe In Miracles (1989)
7) Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment (Album Version) (1977)
8) Rock 'n' Roll High School (Album Version) (1980)
9) I Wanna Be Sedated (1978)
10) I Just Want To Have Something To Do (1978)
11) I Wanna Live (Album Version) (1987)
12) My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg) (Album Version) (1986)
13) Commando (Album Version) (1977)
14) Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (Album Version) (1977)
15) Rockaway Beach (1977)
16) Pet Sematary (Album Version) (1989)
17) 53rd & 3rd (Album Version) (1976)
18) Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue (Album Version) (1976)
19) Mama's Boy (Album Version) (1984)
20) Animal Boy (1986)
21) Wart Hog (1984)
22) Surfin' Bird (Cover of The Trashmen) (1977)
23) Cretin Hop
24) I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You (Album Version) (1976)
25) Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World (Album Version) (1976)
26) Pinhead (Album Version) (1977)
[encore #1]
27) Chinese Rock (Album Version) (1980)
28) Somebody Put Something In My Drink (1986)
29) We're A Happy Family (1977)
[encore #2]
30) Beat On The Brat (Album Version) (1976)
31) Let's Dance (Album Version) (Cover of Chris Montez) (1976)
32) Judy Is A Punk (Album Version) (1976)
1976: Ramones: 4, 17, 18, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32
1977: Leave Home: 7, 13, 26
1977: Rocket To Russia: 2, 14, 15, 22, 23, 29
1978: Road To Ruin: 9, 10
1980: End Of The Century: 5, 8, 27
1983: Sunbterranean Jungle: 3
1984: Too Tough To Die: 1, 19, 21
1986: Animal Boy: 12, 20, 28
1987: Halfway To Sanity: 11
1989: Brain Drain: 6, 16
