25/8/2006 The Ramonas @ Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes

Subject	The Ramonas @ Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes
PostedDate	8/25/2006
	Some gigs you just know are going to be fun - Ramonas shows fall into this category.  Like virtually everyone, I'd never heard of Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes. However, it was easy to find and only a few minutes walk from Russell Square station. The venue is under the Tavistock Hotel in Bedford Way - which doesn't really suggest a venue for punk rock. I paid my £5 and walked downstairs past a sloping seated area where people were drinking beer and watching Ramones films on an overhead screen - things were looking up. As the venue name suggests, there are indeed bowling lanes - however the open layout of the place means nothing really seems to get in the way of anything else. The whole place has a 1950's American theme, but not too over the top and fake as often happens - it seemed pretty cool. The cool atmosphere was greatly enhanced by a DJ spinning a great mixture of classic punk rock and 50's rock 'n' roll.  I don't know if live music is a regular feature there, but there is a small stage. I viewed the trendy looking bar with deep suspicion though - was I about to get ripped off and forced to drink trendy 'fashion' lagers when I prefer my beer brown? I wasn't surprised by the lack of hand pumps on the bar, although there did seem to be taps for two or three different lagers - none of which I had heard of. However, they were all 'off'.  Things weren't looking good - it was looking like a choice of bottled lager or bottled lager - all no doubt overpriced. I spotted a menu card on the bar with all the available beers listed on it. There was an impressive selection - and I'd never heard of any of them! I noted that 'Bernard Dark' looked interesting and came in a large bottle at £3.50 - not much more than I'd usually pay for Newcastle Brown in a music venue. I ordered one and found it arrived in a fancy bottle like Grolsch. It also said 13% on the label - result! It was brown, tasted nice enough, and was really strong without being outrageously priced - I found myself rapidly warming to this venue.  There was a good crowd in for a Friday night, busy but without being too crowded. This was good as a percentage of the money taken on the door is going to Cancer Research UK. The mixture of people looked cool too. One thing which did surprise me was the almost total lack of APRA present.  I met Myk, and also Alex Kane as well as Clare (obviously as she was in the band) but were was everyone else?  The DJs had got the crowd perfectly warmed up with a great mixture of highly appropriate punk and rock & roll when the Ramonas took to the stage and launched into 'Rockaway Beach'. After that it was a non-stop assault of Ramones classics with scarcely a pause for breath before the next wuntoofreefour and barrage of buzzsaw guitar fuelled pop tune. The pace was fast and furious - the already fast 'Blitzkrieg Bop' must have been nearly twice the speed of the original album version! The thing is, that is exactly what the Ramones were about - great catchy sing-a-long pop tunes - but really fast so they can get onto the next one. The Ramonas play the same number of songs in about thirty minutes as most bands play in an hour! The more songs they can get through, the more chance there is of playing all your favourites. They didn't play all  my favourite Ramones songs, but they certainly got nearly all of them into the set - including the terrific 'Surfin' Bird' - a song I've never heard anyone else play.  It's great to see the spirit of the Ramones kept alive - it's also loads of fun!  These girls do a good job of showing people how exciting the Ramones could be, and not to say that the 'brothers' didn't look cool, but the Ramonas are certainly easier on the eye.  Unfortunately, this may well be the only London show the Ramonas play this year. I've got to quite like this venue after my first visit so hopefully the band will play here again as the night seemed to go really well.