U2 Pays Tribute To Joey Ramone

4.19.01 - Launch

(4/19/01, 3 p.m. ET) -- U2 frontman Bono may have been the last artist to speak to Joey Ramone, as the singer called him at New York Presbyterian Hospital on Good Friday (April 13). Two days later when Ramone passed away, U2's "In A Little While" was playing. As the song ended, so did his life.

Bono was very moved by Ramone, and he said in a statement, "In Dublin in 1977 when I saw Joey singing I knew nothing else mattered to him. Pretty soon nothing else mattered to me. The Ramones stopped the music world long enough for U2 and the other garage bands to get on. They invented something...the idea that your limitations were what made you...your street, your neighborhood, the clothes on your back, your record collection was the size of your universe."

Upon hearing that Ramone died, Bono sung a rendition of "Amazing Grace" in honor of the Ramones frontman in Portland, Oregon on Sunday (April 15). In San Diego on April 17, he dedicated the song "In A Little While" to Ramone, and prefaced it with his remembrances of the singer. Later in the show he dedicated the Ramones song "I Remember You" to the late singer (U2 also performed the song earlier in the year at New York City's Irving Plaza). In San Diego, Bono also dedicated "Walk On" to Ramone.

-- Darren Davis, New York

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