We were wandering back from a gig last week in Exeter when we took a detour past the Cavern and heard a band playing cover versions of Ramones classics, we hung about by the door and it was then that Pippa (the nice lady who runs the Cavern) popped up for a breath of fresh air and asked us if we’d like to pop down and check out the band. Bruce checked his memory card on his camera, he was good for at least 100 more shots so down we went!

We soon found out that the band who were knocking out the hits were called ‘Ramonas’ and are THE only UK all female Ramones tribute band, rather than Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee & Tommy, they are Rohnny, Cloey, Pee Pee & Margy and they FUCKING ROCK!

We wandered in just 3 songs from the end of their set, I had been informed by a sweaty casualty of the mosh pit that they had played ‘Ramones’ and ‘Leave Home’ back to back, yes folks, that’s 2 entire albums consisting of 28 tracks in all.

After a brief break, they returned to the stage to play an encore that consisted of ‘Somebody Put Something in my Drink’, ‘Pet Sematary’ and ended the show with an awesome version of ‘Sheena is a Punk Rocker’ assisted by 3 young ladies from the audience who were keen on ensuring that they indulged in a little crowd surfing!

It was great to see some young punks in the pit, clad in tartan, chains and safety pins and donning some impressive mohicans and spiked up barnets, the older, wiser punks stood to the side of the stage, nodding along, whilst enjoying the output leaving the 'whipper snappers' to pogo about, leaping around like asylum in-mates on LSD.

We caught up with Lisa (singer) after the show and had a quick chat, she told us all about when they formed and how they always receive a great reception at their shows, we were only there for 15 minutes and I was ready to dive into the pit and show them kids how it was really done! Lisa also happened to mention that they were playing at the 100 Club on Oxford Street on March 21st, you may have heard of it , it’s a classic venue in the heart of London that has played host to some of the finest and most talented acts in the world, I checked but I could not see that the Ramones ever played there….

I saw an interesting and amusing quote on the ladies website – “The Ramonas capture the magic which the Ramones had in their early days with their intense ‘on stage’ energy levels whilst looking much better than Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee or Marky ever did”. We can’t argue with that!

Ramonas are on tour until March 29th, for dates and venue information, click HERE

Review by Steve Muscutt

Photography by 241photography.co.uk

You can see all the images we took at the gig HERE