NEW YORK — Friends, family and fans of the late Joey Ramone celebrated his 50th birthday Saturday night in appropriately unpredictable fashion, with music from Blondie, Cheap Trick and the Damned — as well as a congressional
proclamation and birthday cake for thousands.
In conjunction with the Hammerstein Ballroom event, Congress proclaimed Saturday "Joey Ramone Day" across the country, thanks to Congressman Gary Ackerman, who represents the Ramones' hometown of Queens, New York. Ackerman is a longtime fan of the band, according to his spokesperson.
E Street Band guitarist and "Sopranos" star Little Steven Van Zandt, who hosted the event, paid heartfelt tribute to the Ramones frontman (born Jeffrey Hyman), who died last month following a long battle with lymphatic cancer.
"Jeffrey Hyman died a long time ago by his own willpower and courage," said Van Zandt, who worked with Ramone on the 1985 anti-apartheid single "Sun City." "Jeffrey Hyman willfully died so Joey Ramone could live. Because of Jeffrey Hyman's courage, Joey Ramone will never die."
Ramones contemporaries Blondie saluted Joey with an exuberant, meticulously arranged cover of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" (RealAudio excerpt). Frontwoman Deborah Harry emphasized the song's roots in the early-'60s girl-group sound Joey loved.
Legendary girl-group producer Phil Spector, meanwhile, saluted Ramone in a letter read to the crowd by Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye.
"Losing you like this is hard to understand," wrote Spector, who produced the Ramones' 1980 album End of the Century.
Cheap Trick — a favorite of Joey's — didn't cover any Ramones tunes, but they did play a set of songs Ramone used to request when he would see the band, including "Surrender," which he once sang live with them.
"Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year/ Every time I got to thinking, where'd they disappear?" frontman Robin Zander yowled. He could well have been singing about Joey Ramone, the middle-class misfit from Queens who transformed himself into a bona-fide musical revolutionary.
Vintage Ramones concert footage and music videos garnered as much applause as the live performances at the event.
Producer Thomas Erdelyi (a.k.a. Tommy Ramone, the band's original drummer) was the only Ramone to attend. "Joey was the heart of the Ramones," Erdelyi said from the stage. "He would give the Ramones a human touch."
The night ended with the crowd singing "I Wanna Be Sedated" over the song's instrumental track as hundreds of Drake's cakes — in lieu of birthday cake — were hurled to the masses.
"It was great — sad and festive," said one fan, Tony Broncusia, a 25-year-old from, of course, Queens.
This report is from MTV News.
|
