Enough said, surely? Possibly one of the biggest, and most influential pop punk bands to roam the earth since who knows what. Being as unique sounding as they are, reviewing this band is exceedingly difficult. Going through their cd’s everyone is sure to find a song to match their taste in music, be it something from the outstanding Dookie album or something from the now dated but endlessly entertaining Kerplunk LP. So where do I start?
I was lucky enough to see Greenday on both Wednesday the 17th of July and Thursday the 18th of July, both at Wembley Arena in London. Wednesday was somewhat uninspiring. The band played well, but not as well as I would have expected for the opening night of a London double bill.For this reason, I’ll try and stick to describing Thursday night… what a turn around!
So there I am. Stood in the middle of the crowd, and then, the sirens start. It can only mean one thing…. Greenday are about to charge onto the stage and burst into an explosive version of Maria. For the second night in a row, Greenday are on stage. For the second night in a row, Greenday are about to blow the audience away.
This second night, is also the last night that the band will be touring, and they intend to get this one off with a bang. Literally, as many Pop Disaster tour goers will have seen, or more to the point heard the top of the range Pyrotechnics surprise… or more frighten the living daylights out of the entire arena. Contemplate 15000 people jumping out of their skins at the same time. Amusing.
The set list contained a mixture from the more indie record ‘kerplunk’, the popular ‘Warning’ CD and the various top notch releases in between. It went something along the lines of…
(01) Maria (02) Longview (03) Welcome to Paradise (04) Hitchin’ A Ride (05) Cast Away (06) Brain Stew (07) Jaded (08) 2000 Light Years Away (09) Knowledge (10) Basket Case (11) She (12) King For A Day / Shout (13) Waiting (14) Minority (15) Good Riddance (16) Platypus (17) When I come around (18) Macy’s Day Parade
As you can see from that list, a mixture of many of their records. Arguably the best ones, although in my eyes songs such as the great B-Side track ‘Scumbag’, which was featured on American Pie 2, and the older yet great song ‘Going To Pasalaqua’ were sorely missed. Anyway, they made up for it with their great attitude to the crowd, and the good level of interaction. Unlike the last band I’d seen and subsequently reviewed (Jimmy Eat World; see reviews page), Green Day lapped up the attention of their latest conquering… the London teenagers.
Unfortunately, no songs were identified as being from their latest release due out late this month, Shenanigans. Maybe the band has slightly changed attitude? Where as normally the old Billie Joe would have been itching to get out his new material, this seems to be more of a tour to celebrate previous work, and not what’s ahead.
What does that mean though? Could the new Green Day album be their downfall? They would have to produce something pretty amazing to win the hearts of lost fans in today’s pop-punk obsessed alternative scene. Let’s not speculate for the worst though. As far as myself, and the other 14,999 people are concerned, celebrating the fact that Green Day existed by enjoying the songs that we had come to know and love sounded a pretty good idea.
Longview was what turned the concert around for me on Thursday night. Maria was impressive, but their final rendition of Longview on the tour was something special. So special in fact that I was asked to calm down by the security guards after instigating a relatively small, but violent mosh pit with the crowd of people surrounding me. You can’t win them all.
Moving onto Welcome To Paradise, and then Hitchin’ A Ride, you can see that the band are doing what they were destined to do. Enjoy them selves!
After playing Hitchin’ A Ride, the band give the mainly teenage audience a lesson in DIY Punk by selecting three members from the audience to come on stage and play a song for the band. Unfortunately, this is getting boring now. I’ve seen it time and time again in various shows and it’s starting to get slightly old. However, the lucky girl who was to play Billie Joe’s guitar was awarded the very instrument for her troubles. She had instantly made 14,999 enemies. Way to go!
Somewhere in that set list above, fits Tré Cool’s (born Frank Edwin Wright, III) very own solo song… ‘All by myself’. This, the secret track on the end of Dookie is seldom played at Green Day live shows, and it was a rare event to see the song being played. For this I consider myself lucky… a very rare performance, which was done in a very funny, very entertaining way. Certainly one of the highlights of the evening.
2000 Light Years Away is a refreshing breeze from past albums. Something for the ‘old skool’ Green Day fans to enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, Cast Away and Longview are great songs, but 2000 Light Years Away is a classic for any real hardcore Green Day fan. Also, the Operation Ivy cover, Knowledge was an interesting one in this set list, but still, the crowd enjoyed it.
The rest of the set list was played as brilliantly as the mentioned songs. The music was real, pure, unadulterated pop-punk pleasure. The way Greenday should be.
A surprise to the crowd came when Billie Joe suddenly screamed
‘Wellellelllell oooh ahhhh oooh’… what’s this..?
‘YOU KNOW YOU MAKE ME WANNA SHOUT’
Yep. You guessed it. Lulu. Something agreed with pretty much everyone I talked to after the show was that covering ‘Shout’ was a rather odd choice. It was however quite entertaining. Not knowing what to do with such music being thrown at us, we started dancing. Don’t ask. Disregard that image.
Good Riddance brought out the usual shower of lighters and swaying arms, along with the entire arena singing, out of tune. Usually a rather emotional song, tonight’s version just didn’t cut it for me. It wasn’t acoustic, and it wasn’t particularly slow. Good, but not great. A shame really… but every show has its good and bad points.
Macy’s day Parade rounded off the evening in style. Showering the crowd with a five minute blast of official ‘Green Day 2002’ red and silver paper, the brilliance of the band can be felt. An awesome show, with a great finale.
Green Day are certainly looking as exciting of a band as ever. They are still full of energy and well worth going to see. Their attitude to the music has barely changed since that first epic release… 1000 Hours back in 1989, and theres no sign of them changing it now. Destined to go down in history as one of the great punk bands ever, Green Day appear to have a lot of work left to be done, and I think If any body is going to do it… these are your boys.