Over the weekend I had the pleasure to head on down to my least favorite venue with my family to see a band that I am only a casual fan of. When I say casual fan, I mean I stopped listening to them when American Idiot came out. Of course, I'm talking about Green Day at Fiddler's Green.
We decided to get there late and miss AFI which I was thankful for. I was so unimpressed with them when I saw them in June. Luckily, we didn't miss out on any of Green Day. As I mentioned before, I stopped listening to Green Day a while ago, but am a fan of their older stuff. The new radio friendly stuff of American Idiot annoys the hell out of me. When Green Day started, the first 45 minutes of it seemed to be all their new stuff and naturally I was bored and uninterested. As a band they sounded good, but I just wasn't feeling the new stuff at all. Then they played Geek Stink Breath and the magic truly began. Green Day went through hit after hit, just rocking out like nobody's business. They brought out a Tshirt gun and fired free Tshirts into the audience, and even pulled people up to sing Longview. The last girl that sang nailed the last verse and was presented with Billy Joe's guitar he had just been playing. How awesome is that? At a couple points they did medleys of classic rock songs and even did a bit of a Benny Hill tribute, right down to some cross dressing and an onstage chase to the theme music.
At another point of the show they did a cover of the old song Shout. The entire band dressed up in different costumes and each would do a small verse of it, just getting the crowd hyped up for them to sing you make me wanna shout...getting denied over and over again for about 5 minutes or so. The build up for that song was crazy. It seemed like everyone over 25 was excited when they finally did sing that whole song.
The show ended after 3 hours and two encores. During the final encore there was a song played called Olivia. Now, while I sit and bash Green Day for the American Idiot CD, this new song has the writing caliber of Bob Dylan. In fact, we were trying to figure out if this was a Dylan song or not. Well done Billy Joe. You have probably written the best song you have ever written with that one. I have to say that I went to that show with low expectations and ended up getting more than my money's worth. I have the utmost respect for any band that plays for 3 hours at that high of a level. They kept it entertaining with crowd interactions (though the say hey oh got old after the 30th time) lots of explosions, and an honest love of playing music. If you get a chance to see Green Day, go. I promise that you will not be disappointed at all.
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