"Hey, we're the Ramones and this one's called Rockaway Beach!"
Today it's the 35th anniversary of the show that became the greatest live-album of all times – It's Alive. After Joeys introduction follows 28 songs in 54 minutes and 38 seconds. And a crowd at the Rainbow Theatre in London that goes wild, ten rows of seats were thrown at the stage after the concert.
"I think our peak, our greatest moment, is that New Year's Eve show of 1977 into 1978. I think that's our greatest moment as a band", Johnny Ramone says in his book "Commando".
I can only agree. The double-LP was released in april 1979. But for some reason it didn't came out in the USA before many years later.
The japanese version is boiled down to a single LP with 20 tracks and have a totally different cover.
The title, It's Alive, comes from the horror-movie from 1974 with the same name.
For many years rumors said that the filming from the Rainbow Theatre was destroyed or lost but 2007 Rhino released most of the show on the "It's Alive 1974-1996" dvd. The quality is great, I only wish that the whole show was included. Maybe it will be out sometime in the future...
Happy New Year!
A dream come true for a whole lot of fans, I was at that Rainbow gig.....just an incredible night.
ReplyDeleteFor me, as a die hard Ramines fan, this one and Loco Live are a real fiasco, as except for the drum the rest was completely overdubbed in the studio, so it is a fake live album. There are a lot of real, true live concerts where the difference is enormous - try live at the Palladium in Jan. 1978, for example. Or the concerts of Live in Holland in 1977, Ann Arbor in 1981, Agora theater in 1983, "Return to London" at Lyceum, in 1985, and a lot more etceteras...
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