The Ramones - It's Alive!

A post I forgot to make earlier in the week, oh well. Anyhow - I'm still investigating The Ramones so I'm not very knowledgeable about the history of band when it comes to landmark performances and such (not yet at least). As far as I'm aware though this performance, which took place at London's Rainbow Theatre in 1977 on New Year's Eve (what happens at midnight is unbelievably cool I think) - is regarded as a key Ramones performance. Not only that but it's also regarded as one of the finest to take place at the Rainbow Theatre. It was released in 1979 as their first live album under the title It's Alive! You can also find the video footage on a DVD compiling live Ramones footage that's called It's Alive 1974-1996. Bare in mind though that the DVD doesn't contain the full show - it has about half of it I think - but the CD version does. I haven't got the DVD yet (although I plan to soon) but when I saw the video footage I was blown away by the performance so much so that I went straight on Amazon and ordered the CD for a very reasonable price. The first thing that struck me very quickly - before we even come to the fact it's a stellar performance - is the quality in terms of picture. Seriously, this was shot in 1977 and there's precious little video footage of punk that exists in such high quality from that era. The only other thing that I've ever seen that rivals it for picture quality (and musical performance really) is the live footage of The Clash in their Rude Boy film. The picture quality is so good it almost makes up for the fact it's sadly only half of the show roughly. A real shame because The Ramones are phenomenal to watch: such ferocious live energy. It's the first proper live footage of the group I've seen, not counting the inevitable live snippets that could be found in the End Of A Century documentary (highly recommended and yet another DVD I need to purchase). Anyhow I'll stop blathering now, but I can't recommend this video highly enough if you have any interest in punk, The Ramones or simply a killer live band!