The people who say the Ramones played only one song that night either weren’t there, or weren’t Ramones fans at the time. Whoever it was that decided to have the Ramones open for Black Sabbath must not have thought it through, and that became pretty obvious. As far as I know, the only time that the Rolling Stones were booed off of a stage was at the San Bernardino Swing Auditorium in the sixties, so what chance did a band playing that new “punk” music stand?
The crowd was what you’d expect in 1978 at a Sabbath concert. Except for a few punky kids in the front—so new was punk to California that most of them were dressed like Brit punks instead of the more appropriate New York state of mind—the audience was a mass of long hair, long coats, steel-tipped boots and metal attitude that was still suffering growing pains but hadn’t reached the ridiculous glam rock stage.
They sold beer at the Swing—in bottles. I’m not sure, but this may have been the last time. Black Sabbath fans would drink beer if Jack Daniels wasn’t around, or if they’d finished what they’d snuck in with them, so there were plenty of bottles in the crowd when the Ramones came on stage.
I was there for both sets. I liked Sabbath, and I’d a Ramones fan since I discovered their first release on the advice the cute punk girl working at Licorice Pizza in Riverside. (That was pre-Musicland, pre_Sam Goody; the real Licorice Pizza.) But even I didn’t have much hope for the Ramones debut to a San Bernardino crowd. The poor little punks in the front didn’t seem to realize—well, maybe they were in from LA or Orange County.
At this point it’s worth noting that the tough-punk didn’t really exist yet; it was mostly clothes but you wouldn’t be afraid of getting in a fight with a Ramones fan. It was just a little trendy. And where the Black Sabbath fans all seemed over six feet tall and at least 200 pounds, the punks were kinda small—kinda really small.
Well that was it. The Ramones hit the stage playing, in the way the way everyone is used to Green Day doing it now, but nobody started with that much energy back then. Before the Ramones were twenty seconds into the first song the booing started, the green-haired kids in the front didn’t catch on—neither did Joey Ramone.
Other than noise, there wasn’t anything being hurled to the stage to start—maybe someone spit or something because they’d heard that’s what punks do—but by the middle of the second song (probably three minutes into the whole show, if you know the Ramones) the bottles started. Lucky for them the crowd was well stoned and had terrible aim, but by minute five—ten seconds into the third song—a bottle hit Johnny.
Joey, bless his heart, actually tried to talk to this mad crowd of cranked up alcoholics, and reason with them. But for Johnny it was enough; he pulled the plug from his guitar and walked—followed closely by the rest.
When I looked down to the front, where I expected the punks to be, it was packed with black. Whether the Sabbath fans had just stepped on top of the Ramones fans—who were now under boot—or the punks caught on seconds before Joey did and made their escape before the crowd noticed them, I’ll never know. I do know that the Ramones went on to better things and became quite famous in America. It’s even likely that some of the bottle-throwers in the audience now brag about having gone to an early Ramones concert.
I also know that the Ramones were on stage for well over five minutes because I’d smoked a whole cigarette. This clearly means that they had to have played more than one song. Five minutes was certainly enough for the Ramones to finish two and start a third; which is what happened. If you check this out on Wikipedia it’ll say 1 song, but I’m telling you it was 2.3 songs.
The Swing? Well, it stayed open for a number of years after that, but eventually someone flew a plane into it and closed it down forever. I guess that’s how it goes.