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After all, the band was about to perform “the most aggressive rock in the world,” wrote Costa.Įarly in the set, singer Joey Ramone shouted how happy he was to see all the young madrileño (hoodlums) and joked about the shortcomings of his Spanish record company: The band wasn’t thrilled with the ramshackle stage and poor sound system. “The gates open with the same emotion that the Holy Door of Santiago does,” he wrote, referencing the pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.Įxpecting trouble, the police brought reinforcements, and a helicopter circled the square as armed troops took up posts in front of the stage. Writing for leading Spanish paper El País, journalist José Manuel Costa described the scene in religious terms. 26, the doors opened, and the kids poured into the stadium and onto the albero, the hard-packed crushed rock covering the ring. “My friends and I bought the tickets the very first day the box office opened.”Īt 7 p.m. Even today’s music execs agree. “The Ramones were already a myth for all of us,” says Charlie Sanchez, head of Warner Music in Spain and Portugal. “They were the most important band to Spaniards by 1980,” says Jesús Ordovás, a leading radio DJ of the era who attended the show. But in Spain, a country still reeling from the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco - who died in 1975 - the Ramones were gods. America’s first and greatest punk heroes had peaked at home. The group’s stateside itinerary that summer included gigs at crumbling East Coast boardwalk theaters and the Six Flags Great Adventure park in New Jersey. That’s because for the 13,000 Spaniards crammed into Madrid’s bullring, the revolution had just begun.īy then, the Ramones had released five albums and 13 singles but hadn’t notched a gold record or Top 40 hit. But no one had told this audience, who applauded the arrival of Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee like it was the dawn of the punk rock revolution. While the Ramones were used to their cultlike following, and plenty of screaming fans, this noise was on another level.īy 1980, many already considered punk to be a fading fad. As the band unfurled its black-and-white eagle banner and took the stage on Sept.