I don't think I ended up in a bunny suit last night at Green Day's show at the Sprint Center, but I'm not sure, either. Or maybe that was you I'm thinking of. Were you wearing black Chucks? Do you have a vague recollection of going for beers and coming back in a bunny suit and ending up on stage in front of Tre Cool's drum set dazed in the lights, feeling your bunny ears? Yeah, me too. It was one of those shows: absolutely crazy, totally thrilling, where anything could've happened and most of it did.
If they could, Green Day probably would dress people up in animal suits and have them dance and sing on stage. But because that's the Flaming Lips' shtick, Green Day instead have perfected a level of crowd interaction that is sustained for an entire, two-and-a-half-hour show and stops just short of the band turning its instruments and mics over to random audience members and letting them perform the favorite songs -- well, most of the time.
There was that one time when Billie Joe Armstrong picked out a prepubescent girl from the crowd, had security hoist her onto the stage and let her sing the first two verses of "Longview," then found a slightly older boy in baggy jeans and tank top and let him finish it off. The kids killed it, too, singing loud and running up to the drum platform like it was their audition for American Idiot: The Musical.
Green Day's latest, the sonically epic, boundlessly earnest concept album21st Century Breakdown, seems to have left old-school fans wondering where the picking-nose--while-masturbating slacker punk-pop heroes of yore have gone. Listen to the new stuff and it's obvious where they've gone: They've grown up. You can't expect them to keep using the same simple, boneheaded approach their whole career. What are they, the Ramones?
But live, live, Green Day is a celebration of what it means not to grow up. William Golding was wrong. Kids left alone on an island would not kill each other. They'd become Green Day, cussing, flicking boogers, spitting, abandoning any notion of adhering to any kind of authority ever again, and singing their little skulls out.
That said, there was a certain seriousness -- or perhaps determination would be a better word -- inherent in the band when it churned out new songs like "The Static Age," "Before the Lobotomy" and "21 Guns." Those songs really can't avert seriousness, with their clunky verses about characters named Christian and Gloria and how they're journeying through a something to get to a something ... America! Fuck! Sample verse, from "Before the Lobotomy": Life before the lobotomy/Christian sang the eulogy/Sing my love a lost memory/Run the end of the century.
Fortunately, whatever levity the new material lacked was more than countered by Green Day being the most excited band on earth and sounding loud and awesome throughout the whole show. Even as he hobbled and careened around stage like a Tim Burton marionette, Armstrong never wavered in his musical attack -- his voice was strong and more tuneful than I realized, and that decal-slathered guitar of his was crisp and loud during the rare occasions when he abandoned crashing power chords for up-the-neck riffage. Of course, it helped that Green Day has doubled in size. Joining the original core are Arkansas boys Jeff Matika and Jason White on guitars and vocals, plus Jason Freese on sax, keys and accordion.
It was their job, along with Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt, to keep it steady, loud and raging while Armstrong led the crowd in almost continual, riotous sing alongs. (It was also Tre Cool's job to hurl his sticks high behind him into the backdrop at every opportunity.)
Seems like the first song had barely begun when all of a sudden Armstrong jumped off stage and ran up into the seats, trailed by a couple of security dudes. Before I knew it, there he was, straight across the aisle from me, not more than six feet away, standing on a chair and casting his twisted, wide-eyed, fool's gaze up at the spotlight. It was awe inspiring.
Antics involving rubber chickens, oversize tighty-whities, SuperSoakers, toilet-paper guns, T-shirt cannons and intentionally half-assed classic rock cover medleys went over joyously. Others were more peculiar, such as when Armstrong called for a child to be brought on stage, indicating that a sacrifice of some kind would take place. "Sir, would you sacrifice your daughter for Green Day?" Armstrong asked, peering into the crowd. A little girl, 8 years old or so, was lifted on stage to play a part in "East Jesus Nowhere." Billie Joe asked her name -- it sounded like "Leilani" -- and spoke instructions into her ear. At the end of one of the verses, he shouted the line "And infiltrate Leilani," and the girl fell backwards, as though faith-healed, to the sound of a massive pyro explosion and lay there the rest of the song.
Billie Joe ushered her off stage, shouting, "Get your ass off my fucking stage, Leilani!" It was fucked up and bizarre, but I think it was all in good fun. That kid's probably feeling pretty goddamn cool today, I reckon. (However, my friend and fellow writer Annie Z. in St. Louis found this feature of Green Day's set creepy and wrong.)
All in all, Green Day managed to not only sell its new songs, they had them singing half the lyrics. Reaffirming the band's status as spokespunks for the suburbs, the crowd itself was comprised, almost to the point of homogeneity, of regular-looking white kids and adults: uninteresting T-shirts, plain old jeans or shorts. Normal hair. If there were any Hot Topic kids lurking, I didn't see them. In fact, I was surrounded by 30- and even 40-somethings about whom absolutely nothing was punk. To them it was just a wild and catchy rock show.
But to the kids whose major, seemingly life-threatening concerns at the moment revolve around acceptance in school (or perhaps a church youth group), it was a revelation.
Early in the night -- what seems like days ago now, virtually -- natty Glaswegian quartet Franz Ferdinand played the role of chipper English boarding school boys warming up for American reform-school punks. They got the crowd bopping and clapping to their funky, ever-so-slightly-punky songs like "No You Girls," "Do You Want To," and "Take Me Out," the latter of which, my concert companion the Ginger Man informed me, was used by MLB as a theme song for the 2004 World Series. I don't have the energy to Google this fact.
Actually, I'm pretty hungover because Green Day guitarist Jeff Mantika is friends with some KC musician buddies of me and the Ginger Man, including Mean Melin and his band, the Dead Girls, and they invited us to the VIP area after the show, where there was the largest private supply of Jermiah Weed Sweet Tea Vodka in probably the whole universe. So, yeah, thanks for reading this far. If you wanna know what Franz Ferdinand is like live, please read my review of there headlining spot at the Beaumont last April.
Green Day Set List
Song of the Century
21st Century Breakdown
Know Your Enemy
East Jesus Nowhere
Holiday
The Static Age
Before the Lobotomy
Are We the Waiting/St. Jimmy
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
JAR
Hitching a Ride
Welcome to Paradise
2,000 Light Years Away
Iron Man/Crazy Train/Sweet Child O'Mine/You Really Got Me (brief medley)
Brain Stew
Jaded(?)
Longview
Basket Case
She
King for a Day
Shout/Goin' to Kansas City/Break on Through to the Other Side/Earth Angel/Free Fallin'
21 Guns
American Eulogy
Encores
American Idiot
Minority
Macy's Day
Last Night on Earth
Time of Your Life
Showing 1-19 of 19
Oh my gosh how much I'm sprung on this years American Idol but I'm kinda bummed that cutie Jermaine Sellers got voted from the show. He was good and needed to stay at least another week!
I went to this concert and it was my first and i gotta say they are freaking awesome live and it was the best night of my life and ill never forget it
out of the two encores they didnt play Jesus of Suburbia? i went to three concerts from the american tour and the encores were pretty much the same and they played Jesus of Suburbia everytime. hmm, and the most recent one was Los Angeles at the Forum, the encore was exactly the same as this, except JOB, the first encore was with the whole band they played, American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Minority, then on the acoustic encore with juse BJA he played, Macy's Day Parade, Last Night on Earth and Time of You Life. oh well
i saw them in KC it was my first concert ever and i just have to say that i dont think any other concert i will ever go to will be as good as that one was!
Ahhh. Saw the show in Omaha last night and today I am basking in the after glow. Billie Joe has saved my soul. Can I get an Amen?
It's been good reading the punk or not punk posts here. It's a classic generational theme. "Kids these days" -- always thinking they invented The Cool. I was mindful of this discussion in the Qwest Center last night. There a couple of rows in front of me was a dad with three young boys (maybe 8-12 yrs old or so). He stood there with those kids, one watchful eye on them and one on the stage, and I swear he sang every word of every song, pumping his fist in the air and jumping up and down with the rest of us. Is that punk? I don't know, but I hope so.
@Katie: Oh, you're 18? (Call me.)
@Keith Koenig: Yes, that is punk enough for my a$$. Thank you.
@That Guy: You, sir, remain the voice of reason. Thank you, too.
@everyone: Thank you for reminding me it's what's inside that's punk.
@anyone in another city considering buying a ticket for an upcoming show on this tour but still on the fence: BUY IT
ditto to Vi Delight. I've been following the reviews too -- I saw them in Philadelphia (from the seats -- I let my son and his friends enjoy the floor experience without the prospect of Dad lurking around) -- and it was a fantastic show and performance by Armstrong and the rest of Green Day. It was my son's first concert, and I'm afraid the bands he sees in the future will have a lot to live up to.
I agree with Vi about the amusing smugness of some reviewers and commenters about the pristineness of punk that might get sullied by GD's energy and popularity, not to mention their increasingly advanced age! Vi is right to mention the vintages of Ramone and Strummer, and I"ll add that the name Ramone came from the name Paul McCartney used (Paul Ramon) in early tours of Scotland and the north of England long before the Beatles were THE BEATLES! (He also went by Paul Ramon when he played bass on Steve Miller's "My Dark Hour" back in the 60s.)
So kudos and thanks to Green Day for a memorable show and for what will be a memorable tour. I'm hoping that before it's over they will roll near me again.
Great review Jason,
It sounds like you and every one else a the Sprint Center had a really good time. Katie's video proves it. Awesome job Katie!
Now, some how you(Jason) opened a can of "punk/not punk" worms. On that front, Green Day has been a polarizing band since day one.
I have come to put this to rest once and for all.
First the band then the fans.
Is Green Day punk? Yes.
(You(fellow readers) can go ahead and stuff them into any sub genera you want, I don't care.)
3 cord songs, heavy on the lead guitar, harmony in the vocals, hard on the back beats, their lyrics are "frank and confrontational", and the most important of all, their shows are fun.
Punk.
That is the main thing, that's what punk music is.
It's fun.
Not "slip-and-slide" fun.
It's egging your gym teacher's house fun, it's mooning the cops fun, it flipping off old ladies fun.
Nothing about punk is serious. Hell even Bad Religion has some not serious songs. Ramones, seriously fun stuff. How much fun are the Dead Milkmen, Hella fun.
As for the fans...its simple. If you say you're punk you are punk. There's no membership dues. You don't get a card.
It's more punk to not look punk, than it is to look punk (i.e. The Descendants)
If anyone has any other questions about this topic feel free to email me. I'll set you strait. thatguyKC@gmail.com
I'm as qualified as anyone else.
Just remember to?...that's right have fun.
If you aren't having fun then you're EMO and no one wants that.
I saw GD tonite in Omaha. Absolutely incredible show! I will turn 50 soon and for my money they are currently the best rock band in the world. Their last two efforts American Idiot and 21st Century are as good as it gets in this decade. If there is better music out there I have yet to hear it. No band interacts with the audience better than GD. My only complaint is that they omitted-in my opinion-their greatest recording "Jesus of Suburbia" tonite in favor of "Minority". Not a huge deal as the show was jaw dropping without JOS. They have reached another level. WOW!!!
ML
ML
"40-somethings about whom absolutely nothing was punk."
Define PUNK. If we are to believe you, we can more or less tell by SIGHT. Look, I may no longer look like a Punk, but this 45 year old (46, next month) took a lot of crap back in the late 70's here in KC for liking The Ramones, Devo, The Sex Pistols, and Gang Of Four, to name a few, by all my Nugent/Seger/Styx loving friends. I dug those artists too but needed an "alternative" at the time. In the late 70's and even into the first couple of years of the 80's, most Rock fans in this part of the country didn't WANT and were even a bit afraid of the alternative. I know. I was THERE!
In fact, I had friends who liked Metal bands with all of their Make Up, Leather, and Studs calling MY favorite bands GAY! People like me paved the way for all of these kids at Punk shows today who take NO flack for liking their favorite bands. In fact, their parents even listen to their kid's favorite bands! That simply didn't happen back in the day. I went to the Green Day show because they are a band that is a lot of fun live and can rest easy knowing that I was PUNK (however the f*ck you define it) while you were probably swimming in your father's sac. Is that PUNK enough for your a$$??
Most awsome concert i have ever seen! im 26 and have been trying to get into a concert since i was 11 but in california they sell out fast... i am so glad i never gave up. someone in line told me that it is not a concert it is an event... they were right. This is something i will never forget!
Unfortunately some punks have to grow up and conform sometime. That show brought out the young punk in me all over again. Everybody can be a rebel at a Green Day show.
Billie Joe Armstrong picked out a prepubescent girl from the crowd... I AM 18 YEARS OLD. lol. I know I look young but geez. yesterday was the best day of my life.
Ginger Man: You did tell me it was "Jacqueline." My mistake. I remembered it incorrectly for obvious reasons.
Vi Delight: I said there was nothing punk about the people from that age group who were around me. The punkest people I know are older cats. I just meant that in terms of behavior and appearance, they did not appear to be overtly aligned with stereotypical punk values. I should've known better than to pass "punk" or "not punk" judgment on something. Losing game.
I have been reading the Green Day concert reviews throughout this tour and every one of them makes some mention of how many "older" people were in the audience. Even here you say, "and even 40-somethings about whom absolutely nothing was punk." As a 50-something looking forward to seeing the show in Omaha tonight, let me remind all of you brats that Joey Ramone (RIP) was born in 1951 and Joe Strummer (RIP again) in 1952. You do the math and quit thinking you invented punk.
like
dislike
