21/1/2012 Banjoey Ramone @ Gypsy Hotel

Subject	Banjoey Ramone @ Gypsy Hotel
DateCreated	1/22/2012 9:49:00 AM
	The new year is finally starting to pick up and tonight I go to my second gig of 2012. It's a Gypsy Hotel night at The Lexington. The club night is run by the Urban Voodoo Machine, but the band themselves aren't performing tonight. - although various members of the band do pop up in some of tonight's other acts. Things don't go that well for me - due to leaving home at the last minute (as usual) to catch a train I forget my camera in the rush. I arrive at The Lexington to find it packed.  I struggle to the bar to find two real ale pumps - neither of them in use. This wasn't the case on my last couple of visits. Not even any keg bitter or pale on tap, and not even Newcastle Brown in the selection of bottled beers - it's lager, lager, or lager. I don't think they want me to visit this venue any more.  The bar prices aren't cheap either. I'd rather go without - so I do.  The club seem to have put their door prices up too - around £11 to go upstairs and see the bands. Not good value as I'm only here to see one band, and they only play a 30 minute set. So onto the reason I'm here. This is the first ever gig by Banjoey Ramone. The name is a bit of a clue. An acoustic(ish) Ramones tribute? Well sort of. The band consists of various characters from the London punk 'n' roll scene, including past and current members of the The Loyalties, Yo-Yo's, Urban Voodoo Machine and Plan A. The set opened with a chant of "HEY-HO, BANJO!' That set the tone for the rest of the show as the band launched into a ramshackle rendition of the Ramones classic 'Blitzkrieg Bop'. After a shakey start the band pulled it together and their set turned out to be a lot of fun! Sorry about the picture quality - my phone doesn't take very good pictures in bad light. I might have taken more if some girl dancing hadn't send my phone flying out of my hand and across the floor. It turned out to be less of a Ramones tribute and more of a set of classic punk covers - in a banjo-led acoustic folk-punk fashion. As well as several Ramones songs we got classics from The Damned (Love Song), and The Clash ('White Riot' and 'I Fought The Law') among others. Yes - I know the latter isn't a Clash song, but you know what I mean. Banjo toting frontman Tom Spencer (claiming to to play "The World's most stupid instrument!") finished off the show by announcing that playing the Ramones "isn't Rocket Science - but this is!" and the band launched into a long medley with they had obviously worked on starting and finishing with The Ramones but also mixing in a load more punk classics - joined by Urban Voodoo Machine frontman Paul-Ronney. The whole set went down a storm so I'm sure we'll be hearing more from Banjoey Ramone in 2012. Not being in the mood for hanging about in a venue that doesn't serve anything I want to drink, I headed home and spent some of my beer money on a Bacon Double Cheeseburger at the Kings Cross Burger King instead - having some time to kill waiting for a train as I'd miss-read the train time list I'd printed out beforehand. Not one of my best organised nights...