As a warm welcome to Marky Ramone, the only remaining member of the Ramones, who came down in person to attend Beijing Pop Festival, RockforChina Ltd organized a themed live show "Tribute to Ramones" at Beijing's best live venue Mao Live House. This is also one of the activities to heat up the scene for the upcoming 2007 Beijing Pop Festival.
New pants, Joyside, Demerit, SKO, No Name, The K, Guai Li, together with Happy Project brought to over 500 fans a hugely enjoyable night.
The audience's high spirit managed to out win the sticky weather, they gathered around the Live House long before the show started. There were a considerate number who came all the way to the show from Tianjin, Hebei even Shanxi Province to demonstrate their hard core love for the Ramones.
Just as expected, the show kicked off at 8pm; however, it was opened up by a positive surprise---the glamour rock band Muma & Third Party. The band intended to take this opportunity to present a few of their new songs from their soon-to-be-released album, which is also the first solo album from Muma; and also to prepare for their performance at Beijing Pop Festival.
Following up was the new band Happy Project whose female lead singer was rumored to be the editor of a famous music magazine, the band managed to win the audience over with the merit of their music though some may argue the sexy outfit of the lead singer surely helped as well!
As a hard core force for Beijing's Ska Punk, the K did Ramones’ classic "The KKK took My Baby Away" and "Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio". Their lively and rhythmic notes stirred up a small scale POGO in the audience which was the first highlight of the night.
To stir up the heat the Old School band No name put the audience into a even madder status with their versions of "Commando" and "Rockaway Beach".
Probably just as their name suggested, the upcoming band Guai Li’s music is of uncanny power. They impressed the audience with their version of the Ramones' another classic "Chinese Rock" and their slender lead singer's emotionless play of the drums.
The next memorable moment was brought by the new Punk Rock band SKO, with their redo of the "Outsider" and "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker", the audience did another round of POGO whilst singing along with the band.
With the iconic singing of "Hey ho Let's go", came the Demerit. The temperature in the live house went straight up with the audience putting their arms in the air.
The show was closed by the New Pants who just came back from a successful tour in Hongkong. They was said to be the most Ramones-like band in China. They returned to their usual forms of guitar, bass and drums after doing the New Wave styled "I Wanna be Your Boyfriend". When the mysterious guest came out from behind at the invitation from the lead singer Peng Lei, the atmosphere heated up to a boiling point, since descending on stage was the Godfather of China's Punk Rock music: Xiao Yong, the lead singer of Brain Failure. This was the first time since 1997 Brain Failure and New Pants performed together on the same stage. Together they presented the literal theme song of the night "You are My Ramones", with a major sing-along from the 500 fans present. That night's biggest POGO, however, was brought by New Pants' version of "The KKK Took My Baby Away", with Peng Lei and Xiao Yong's joint performance the audience witnessed a historic moment on China's Punk Rock history.
The staff of Mao Live House revealed after the show this was a record breaking night in terms of ticket selling; the presence of many well-known artists and bands such as Xie Xiaotian and Zi You also suggested the high attention this show received.
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(Beijingpopfestival.com August 7, 2007)