Billie Joe Armstrong, Duff McKagan, Steve Jones And Fred Armisen Play Acoustic Tribute To Johnny Ramone
Each year, Ramone’s widow Linda organizes a celebration of life for her late husband and this year’s event took place where the legendary guitarist was laid to rest, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles this past Sunday.
This year’s annual tribute to the late Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone featured an all-star line-up featuring Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and Portlandia star Fred Armisen who performed an acoustic set of Ramones and punk classics.
Each year, Ramone’s widow Linda organizes a celebration of life for her late husband and this year’s event took place where the legendary guitarist was laid to rest, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles this past Sunday.
The impromptu super-group played a medley of Ramones’ hits including ‘Rockaway Beach’, ‘Judy Is A Punk’ and ‘Danny Says’, along with a rendition of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’.
Those in attendance included longtime guest, street artist Shepard Fairey along with Morrissey and a few hundred Ramones fans.
After the set, Armstrong talked about the legacy of the Ramones with Forbes, saying, “They seemed like a family, with the name and a gang or something like the Del-Lords or some kind of New York bunch of barbarians that could wield around a baseball bat. They’re known, just the leather jackets, the jeans and the thing I liked about them is they didn’t really play up the fashionable English mohawk punk. They were very American and very Americana. They got what the aesthetic was, especially for Johnny, who was a very proud American. So that sort of symbolized the Ramones”.
In addition to the performance, the tribute also included an art exhibit and a screening of the camp classic Barbarella, as part of the popular oudoor screening series, Cinespia. Linda Ramone explained her husband’s love of the visual arts has inspired the annual event.
“Johnny was very passionate about collecting, especially movie posters”, she told Forbes. “He had every inch of the house covered. And we talked about how they looked all the time with our pals. That’s why we show a movie every year and have an installation of art and memorabilia at the tribute, because it’s what Johnny loved”.
Check out our Guns N’ Roses Artist Page.
UK English
