Richie Ramone Sands Bethlehem Molten Lounge

March 14, 2018

By Alexxis Steele

Part 2

Punk legend Richie Ramone, known as the fastest Ramone’s drummer, and the only one of their drummers to sing lead on Ramone’s songs, performed two back to back shows in the Lehigh Valley, on March 14th 2018.

The first show was at One Centre Square, Easton, Pa with openers Sister Salvation, plus The Transmission Now, the second was at The Sands Bethlehem Casino, inside the Molten Lounge.

Richie was no stranger to the casino, since he performed there in 2015, after a show he did at The Gin Mille in Northampton.

The latter show at the Molten, which he described as being “loungy”, was a far cry from the energy of his punk fans at the other venue earlier that evening. Richie tried to get the crowd going right from the getgo, and feigned falling off the stage, but unfortunately the crowd did not respond to his gesture.

Ramone, and his band performed a roughly hour and a half set, which included Ramone’s classics like ‘Somebody Put Something in my drink’, and Blitzkrieg Bop, which was sung by his female bassist- Clare Misstake from London. The evening set list also included songs from Richie’s first cd- ‘Entitled’, and his latest disc- ‘Cellophane’. Other band members include: Ben Reagan, rhythm guitar and drums, who gave Richie a chance to come out from behind the drums to sing , and on lead guitar- Steve Haley.

Even though Richie had to work extra hard to get a rise out of the casino fans, there was no doubt he had appreciation for his Ramone’s fan that showed up for his performance. Richie remembered some of his female friends that had been out on the floor dancing the last time he was there, and got off the stage to go out and engage with the crowd. He started off by giving a kiss on the cheek to a female in front that was wearing a Ramones t-shirt, and shook hands and gave high fives to a quartet of fans dressed in black with black leather jackets.

After saying goodnight to his fans, the band was headed out to their next gig destination in Stanhope NJ at The Stanhope House. The US tour concludes on March 25, at The Barbary in Philadelphia, and then Richie and his band will be heading off to South America, performing in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.

To keep up with what Richie is doing check out his website: www.richieramone.com