The Ramonas / The Bucky Bombs - Summerhall, The Old Lab Edinburgh Saturday 7th October 2023

Helping keep the fires burning are The Ramonas – a fabulous all-female tribute band (Cloey, Rohnny, Skitchy and PeePee) who have been rocking out honouring the Ramones songbook for over ten years now. Due to inflation, it now costs five times as much as that 1980 ticket to see these girls in 2023 but they’re great value and their energetic set makes a lot of people happy on a rainy night in Edinburgh and apparently, they were fantastic in Glasgow the previous night too.

Obviously, by bending the genders they’re not strict visual doppelgangers but you know who’s who and the ladies really look the part and sound both great and totally authentic. As you would expect, it’s high-octane stuff with no chat, just shouted song titles and 1-2-3-4s. ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ is an early highlight and ‘Glad to See You Go’ and ‘Oh Oh I Love Her So’ are singalong favourites. There were quite a few veterans of the punk wonder years enjoying a night out and a gentle pogo but there were also plenty younger folks too and that shows just how timeless the original band is. I don’t recall buying a T-shirt in 1980, and it certainly wouldn’t still fit me if I had, but one chap spotted my non-authentic shop-bought T-Shirt and mentioned that he still has his original tour shirt, although he frustratingly couldn’t find it in time for the show.

Halfway through the set, Cloey removed her ‘Joey’ shades and broke character to introduce four original Ramonas songs. They’ve recorded four albums of their own songs so far. They don’t stray too far from the blue-print but they’re excellent and really showcase what they can do. Once the shades go back on, Judy, Sheena and Suzy (a punk, a punk rocker and a headbanger respectively) all turn up in an extensive and crowd-pleasing set as you would expect and they also dig deep to play ‘Endless Vacation’ from 1984’s ‘Too Tough to Die’ album just because “it’s really f*cking fun to play”.

On a Big Apple trip a few years ago, I remember being disproportionately pleased to spot a New York subway train with ‘Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street station’ on its destination sign, so as you can imagine, I enjoyed hearing ‘Rockaway Beach’ again when it popped up after ‘Rock & Roll High School’ at the tail-end of set list. Cloe brandished a “Gabba Gabba Hey” placard during the main set-closer ‘Pinhead’ before ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’ and ‘Pet Semetary’ (“for the Stephen King fans”) rounded off the night. This really was a joy too watch and I’ll certainly be there the next time The Ramonas come back this way.

As much as the teenage me enjoyed those 1980 gigs, I was too young for the most iconic Ramones show in Edinburgh, which was at Clouds (The Cavendish) with The Rezillos in support, in the week before Christmas in 1977. This time around, the support band are also “fae Fife” – The Bucky Bombs, who are for fans of The Ramones, Buckfast and the vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys and if you don’t know their name, they’ll spell it out for you in a song. They went down well and clearly enjoyed their night both on-stage and later while enjoying the headliners set, fortified, of course, with some of that exotic tonic wine.

This was also my first visit to Summerhall, a vast arts complex and events venue at the East end of The Meadows, not far from The Odeon. Back in 1980, the building was still the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College but it is now a labyrinthian space which hosts weddings, conferences and Fringe performances and is also home to a varied community of creative artists and businesses, including a pub, café, brewery and distillery. This gig was in The Old Lab – a basic ‘black box’ space with a low stage - but it was perfectly good for a gig of this size and quite comfortable, so it would be good to see more rock shows there too, especially since it’s handy for my bus home!