August 28, 1995 I attended my third ever Ramones concert.  It was in a very small venue with about 700 people.  It was probably my favorite concert due to me being so close to the stage.  My brother and I arrived at the venue mid-afternoon.  We waited, waited and waited outside the backstage entrance behind a fence looking through the opened backstage doors.  After a long while we saw CJ Ramone walking near the door.  He came out the door and that was our chance to call him over. We kindly yelled out "CJ can we get your autograph?"  and so he came over to us.  We could not believe that CJ was standing just two feet in front of us.  More fans came over and CJ signed many things.  He signed our tour books for us.   He signed and spoke to his fans for several minutes.  I was able to shake his hand when I reached over the fence. He was really cool as he knew what fans are all about. Then he headed back in to the venue.

 

Next thing we heard was loud, loud music; it was CJ, Johnny and Marky going through soundcheck. They played almost full versions of "Strength To Endure" & "Cretin Family". It was really great and exciting to hear those songs during soundcheck.  We were fortunate to have heard this, there was only a few fans out there.  I wish that Joey would have been part of the soundcheck, but we were lucky enough.

Next, Johnny Ramone came out and signed autographs for the fans that were there. He was really cool with the fans. Next to Johnny were two guys.  At the time I was not aware that one of the guys was Arturo Vega.  As cool and legendary as Johnny was, he treated us very nice.  There were a few fans in front of us, and when he was done with them, he thought that he was done, so he headed back in.  We called out his name and he came back and signed and talk to us for a while.

After a while of waiting we saw Joey Ramone come out of the backstage door with a girl and headed to a car.  At that time there were a few more fans there.  I was able to take photos of Joey walking to the car, entering and leaving.  He did wave goodbye at me; I was lucky enough to have a photo of him waving.

 

Marky Ramone then came out the backstage door and he waived at us fans and went back in.  It looked like he was looking for someone.  I really wished that he would have come over to sign for us.

 

Johnny later came out again and left in a van.  My brother and I wanted to follow him, but thought that it would not be cool.  Well now that we had so much Ramones interaction and it was not even show time, we just waited outside the venue for the show to start.

The doors opened up and people were allowed in.  I went straight to the merchandise table.  I bought an Adios Amigos tour shirt with the dates on the back.  I wanted all of the shirts they had, but they would not sell all of them, for the price of one.  I was a poor college student and did not have money.

Next we pushed our way through the crowd and ended up about five feet away from CJ's stage area.  My brother headed over to Johnny's area.  All of a sudden the lights turned off and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly theme song started.  The boys came out on state and then....1-2-3-4! The madness began.  I got kicked, pushed and could barely breath from it being so hot in that small venue.

 

The show was amazing.  I stayed near CJ's speak the whole time and my ears have never been the same.  The crowd pushed so hard that I was crushed during the entire show.   At this show, they played a new song that I had never heard before.  Later in the years, I found out it was R.A.M.O.N.E.S.

I would like to apologize to the person that I pushed out of the way in order to get CJ's pick that he threw.  My brother had the same luck and was able to get Johnny's pick.

 

The performance was the last San Diego show that the Ramones headlined.