Watch Duff McKagan, Billie Joe Armstrong pay an acoustic tribute to Johnny Ramone
They cover iconic Ramones numbers like “Rockaway Beach,” “Judy is a Punk,” and more.
Image: Fabio Diena / Shutterstock.com
Duff McKagan, Billie Joe Armstrong, Fred Armisen and Steve Jones put on an acoustic set at the annual Johnny Ramone tribute, held over the weekend.
The event took place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, Saturday Night Live alum Fred Armisen and Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones covered a number of Ramones hits. The set list included “Rockaway Beach,” “Judy is a Punk,” “Danny Says” and more. They even did a rendition of the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant.”
Armstrong took the lead on “Rockaway Beach,” and he looked right at home, belting the tune while strumming away on his Gibson dreadnought. After the performance, he spoke to Forbes about the iconic band: “They seemed like a family, with the name and a gang or something like the Del-Lords or some kind of New York bunch of barbarians that could wield around a baseball bat.”
“The thing I liked about them is they didn’t really play up the fashionable English mohawk punk. They were very American and very Americana. They got what the aesthetic was, especially for Johnny, who was a very proud American. So that sort of symbolized the Ramones.”
Watch an excerpt of the performance here:
