MARKY RAMONE AND THE INTRUDERS

Live at the The Continental, NYC, USA on February 1, 1997.

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This show was a few months ago, but I remember it as well as yesterday. This was the first day of February (1997), this was only the second time the Intruders played in NYC. This was at a club called Continental ( the Remains played there too a few weeks earlier ).

Marky Ramone And The Intruders were supposed to come on at midnight, I got there about twenty minutes late worried that I might have missed part of the set, but the opening band Suicide King was still playing. It cost 8 bux to get in. It was pretty crowded and it was a pretty small club.

They were selling a lot of Marky Ramone And The Intruders merchandise. They had hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, Marky Ramone drum sticks, posters, thats all I can remember. When suicide king was finished, Marky came out to set up his drums himself, he had to walk through part of the crowd and no one tried to talk to him or anything. Then he went back stage again. Around 12:45, Legs McNeil ( author of please kill me, and he was editor of punk magazine in the 70 's) came up to introduce the band. He admitted that when he announced the band a few weeks earlier, he got the name of the band wrong. He said " Marky Ramone & the Invaders". He got the name right this time.

Then Marky walked up on stage wearing his leather jacket and sat behind the drums. The other 3 walked on stage carrying their guitars up on stage and immediately plugged them in and started playing. The first song they played was "Can't take it with you" and the second was "Anxiety". The line up was :Ben Trokan on rythmn guitar, Johnny Pisano on Bass, Skinny Bones on lead guitar and lead vocals, and guess who played drums. They played with a lot of energy. Ben Trokan played really fast and jumped around a lot. Johnny Pisano did not use a pick, he played with his fingers as fast if not faster than all other fast Bass players. Skinny Bones sung and played guitar really well sounding even better than he sounded on the album. Marky (suprise, suprise) was awesome as always.

He played the drums really fast and hard, never missed a beat, never slowed down for a second. It was diferrent than a Ramones concert because there were no security guard standing in front of the band, and if you stood in the front ( which I did), they were only about 2 feet in front of you. It was a lot of fun watching them play. They played a bunch of songs off the album ( at this time the album wasn't out in America, but I had the album as an import) like telephone love, oh no not again, 3 cheers for you, I wants my beer, coward with a gun, Maybe tomorrow. They also played the job that ate my brain, and have a nice day, and Skinny Bones said "this is not a cover of a Ramones song, they covered our song".

While they were playing I turned around and noticed that 10 feet behind me among the crowd was...Joey Ramone! He looked different than how he usually looked. He had his hair in a ponytail, he wore a baseball cap backwards, he was wearing some long jacket ( not the leather jacket) that went down to his feet. But he was wearing his sunglasses. ( yes, I'm sure it was him, I even got his autograph) Nobody tried to talk to him. He stood there staring at the band looking angry and annoyed. I don't know what he thought of the music.

They covered the Ramones song "I don't care ", and Lars from Rancid came on stage to join them. Skinny Bones took off his guitar handed it to Lars, and Skinny Bones just sang. Lars stood next to the bass player, and he sang backing vocals. Lars went off stage after one song and stood in the front and watched the band be great. After that they played a few songs they wrote which were not on the album. They covered the Richard Hell & the Voidoids song "Blank generation" ( Marky was the Voidoids drummer before he joined the Ramones). I liked the Intruders version of that song better than the Voidoids. After that they played a song not from the album, then they played "Back off". After that they walked off stage, but came back a few minutes later to play an encore.

The Encore had a cover of the Ramones song "Outsider" and then they played " Holding a grudge", the last song. Then they walked off stage and Marky waved goodbye to all his fans. It ended around 1:45. It was a lot of fun and I'll never forget it. I highly reccomend you go see them when they come to your town. You'll love them, if you don't, you suck!

(THANKS REALLY AGAIN FOR JC)