A Ramones Hanukkah with Yo La Tengo 12/21/2022
Yo La Tengo wrapped up this year’s Hanukkah Residency at the Bowery Ballroom last night. In what’s become an annual tradition for the band, they stake out a venue in the New York area for all eight nights of Hanukkah. Their first Residency was at Maxwell’s in Hoboken back in 2001. I’d heard about this Urban Legend, but hadn’t pulled the trigger until this year.
I opted for Night Number 4, this past Wednesday. In years past, Yo La Tengo has run this thing like a variety show, with surprise guests, comedians, and other entertainers, in addition to their wonderful selves.
I’ve long been a Yo La Tengo fan. Their live performances are always a treat. All three musicians in the band — front man Ira Kaplan, drummer Georgia Hurley, and bassist James McNew, are each wonderful, talented musicians. They all swap in and out of percussion, keyboards, and vocals, and they cover a broad swath of musical styles — folk, jazz, blues, rock, punk — you name it and they can play it. They play a ton of their own material, which is an impressive library itself, and they cover just as wide a variety of other bands and solo acts.
Tonight’s guests included musicians Angel Dean and Sue Gardner, a couple of terrible comedians, and Marky Ramone.
Angel and Sue were the opening act. They were a little plinky-plinky/folksy for me, but were entertaining and funny. They’ve clearly had a long relationship with Yo La Tengo, and showed their age a bit when they mentioned attending Ira Kaplan’s bris and changing his diapers.
Yo La Tengo led off their set with a cover of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop”, and then played over a dozen of YLT’s lesser known songs, wrapping up with a cover of Velvet Underground’s “I Found A Reason”. Along the way, Ira Kaplan launched into a 24-hour guitar solo, which he pulled off pretty well.
And then it got spectacular. For their encore, Yo La Tengo was joined by Marky Ramone on drums and Tom Kenny on vocals. In what was the highlight of the night, the enhanced band blasted out half a dozen Ramones tunes: Rockaway Beach. I Can’t Make It On Time. Be My Baby (OK, this one was The Ronettes). I Wanna Be Sedated. Loudmouth. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker. You can see a few short clips from the encore numbers here.
The overall effect was a great lounge band that got out of control and completely took over the bar mitzvah. It was a terrific show.