Johnny Ramone Acoustic Tribute, via YouTube: Rock NYC

The annual tribute to late Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone took place on Sunday (August 26th) at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, and this year’s ceremony featured some extra star power.

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and Portlandia star Fred Armisen were on hand to perform an acoustic set of Ramones classics. According to Forbes magazine, Morrissey and artist Shepard Fairey were among the attendees at the event, which was co-organized by Johnny’s widow, Linda Ramone.



After the acoustic set, Armstrong shared his thoughts on the Ramones with Forbes, saying, “They seemed like a family, with the name and a gang or something like the Del-Lords or some kind of New York bunch of barbarians that could wield around a baseball bat. They’re known, just the leather jackets, the jeans and the thing I liked about them is they didn’t really play up the fashionable English mohawk punk. They were very American and very Americana. They got what the aesthetic was, especially for Johnny, who was a very proud American. So that sort of symbolized the Ramones.”

The set featured the all-star musicians playing such Ramones songs as “Rockaway Beach”, “Judy Is a Punk” and more. They also performed a rendition of the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant”. Watch in the clips below.