The VCU newspaper The Commonwealth Times is featuring archival articles on their back cover page. The March 10th edition features a story called “Punks from New York to Rock in Old Gym”, by Bruce Terrell (a member of many local bands- Boys From Skateland with Bryan Harvey for one).
Having seen the Ramones myself (R.I.P, Joey) quite a few times, my curiosity was piqued. The article says they were to play at the VCU old gym on October 22, 1976 (for $2 admission), but Wikipedia does not have details, saying they were around D.C. at the time (which might, of course, include Richmond, I suppose).
I have no doubt that the Ramones played Richmond many times post-’76 in many different local venues. I guess what I am wondering is if the old VCU gym that is referred to in the article the Franklin street one or the City Auditorium/Cary St. + Cherry St. one that is now the new VCU student recreational center.
Local designer/soccer fan Doug Dobey remembers a Richmond Ramones show in 1978. One local band that was linked to the Ramones in Richmond is Single Bullet Theory. I am sure the members of this Facebook group could add a lot of details.
My husband’s and my first date was to see the Ramones at the Flood Zone. The date was May 13,1990. I was not a Ramones fan at all but my date sure was cute!! We were married 19 years last month.
Yes, the Ramones did indeed play the gym on Franklin Street in October, but not the 22nd and not 1976, at least not to my knowledge, and I lived across the street from the gym at 806 West Franklin at that time. They did a show in D.C. that day. I saw them at VCU on 28 October, 1978. It was a Hallowe’en dance, and people were in costume. My friends and I got dressed up for the dance and when we went in we saw posters for some band called “The Ramones” from New York. We’d never heard of them, still being firmly entrenched in the Beatles and the Stones and maybe a little Fleetwood Mac and Eagles. Punk had not hit Richmond yet, and we’d barely heard of any of the stirrings out of London or New York and hadn’t a clue as to what we were going to see that night, we just wanted to drink beer, hit on girls, and maybe hear a little music. Well, these guys took the stage, no they really TOOK the stage, like a platoon of soldiers taking an enemy held hill. With the now classic “ONETWOTHREEFOUR…!!!” yelled out they launched into the fastest, wildest show our poor little hippy-dippy minds had ever seen. Exhausted from dancing like a maniac after the first three or four songs which took all of about seven minutes, I turned to my stunned friends and said, “I have just seen the greatest fucking band in the world.” They were all in various stages of amazement, but all agreed that these guys definitely were something very special. We walked out of there that night Ramones fans. Everyone wasn’t a total convert to punk at that moment, but personally, I was completely sold, and have been a punk ever since that night in the gym, in 1978. The next day I went out to The Gramophone, my local, closest record store, and bought “Rocket To Russia” for about five bucks. I brought it home, put it on the turntable and we all went nuts all over again. I still have that record, and many others, but the memory of that show is so vivid. I was so taken with Joey’s and Johnny’s look that I grew my hair longish, parted right over my nose, wore the tinted glasses and would’ve had the leather jacket if only I could’ve afforded one. I had a girlfriend who looked exactly the same. You have a few moments in your life that you distinctly remember, moments that cause a sea-change in your life’s direction. This was one of those moments for me.