C&L's Late Nite Music Club with Green Day
By David Neiwert Sunday Jul 05, 2009 7:00pm
I've always wondered how Green Day would fare in a long concert. Their music is so relentlessly anthemic, I always wondered if they'd be able to sustain the electricity necessary for those kinds of songs -- especially for the audience.
So I caught their kickoff concert for its world tour last night at Key Arena in Seattle. And you know what? They somehow pull it off.
Now, Billie Joe Armstrong was quoted in the Seattle Times as vowing to put on five-hour shows on this tour, and last night was only three and a half hours, including the warmup act, The Bravery. But no one really cared, because it was probably the most sustained high-energy performance most of us have seen in years.
How did they manage to keep it electric? By connecting with the audience.
The band opened with a number of selections from 21st Century Breakdown, but quickly began sprinkling in hits from American Idiot (including "Holiday," which I managed to catch on rather grainy vid). If you were coming for the Green Day hits alone, you went away sated, because they were all there. ("Basket Case" in particular was awfully good.)
But Billie Joe made it work by working hard to connect to the audience. In this video, you can see him calling a 10-year-old up onstage to help with the dancing. At other times, he invited audience members up to sing, too, with varying degrees of success, but it was cool. And in what looked like it could have been a classic prearranged stunt, he even had one young audience member climb up onstage and play the rhythm guitar part for "Jesus of Suburbia." Rather well, I might add.
It might have been schtick, but it worked. The audience was electrified, and the music made it even more so. It was a great, great show. If the rest of the dates on the tour are up to this level of play, it should be a very good tour indeed.
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I don't know about that song, exactly, but I do know that for years Green Day has invited people up on stage to play their instruments for a song. It's usually a specific one (I can't remember right now), but I saw it myself when they were in Phoenix a couple years ago. And yeah, I was blown away by how awesome they were live. "Good Riddance" was particularly amazing.
I was tabling for Greenpeace but our materials never showed up, so we went to see the show instead.
Before the concert, I had sort of liked them but the show blew me away. They were amazing with the audience, kept the energy up the whole time and I had a lot of fun. It was also cool to see so many families there with small kids, etc. Clearly everybody loves this band live! Now I'm a fan.
this was in Texas during the Bush disaster, and the band never stopped making political comments and the audience ate it up.
I know it's hip or whatever to say you don't like Green Day, or they sold out, they're not punk rock etc, blah, blah, blah..
Whatever. I was around when punk started and you nay-sayers out there most likely were not, so shut it.
Green Day plays a whole buncha great, loud, rocking tunes that are clever and catchy. They crank their amps and have a good time, particularly live. Also, who needs a key other than A to play rock and roll?? :)
I give them props for telling Wal Mart to stuff it on selling this record. Which was a gamble as they are the largest brick and mortar retailer of music, but they didn't want to sensor the music. Good for them.
Me, I'll go and have a good time with my wife, listen to some loud rock and roll and go home happy.
The hipsters can stay home and sulk..
ok, so i know that they have always had some kid come up on stage to play with them....but a 10 year old? and playing long concerts?
oh well....and so it goes
did joey ramone ever invite children up to the stage? play really long sets?
and those guys from the bay can yell and scream that green day sold out...whatever
the entire scene was never really punk anyway....just a bunch of kids trying to recreate a movement that they really had no connection to and didnt understand
that much energy was Bruce springsteen in Seattle, 1978 and I've seen a lot of live concerts. I gotta check them out live. So who cares if their not punk enough? Why limit yourself to one genre of music? Someone that truly appreciates music listens to everything, from pop to classic to hard core rap and zydeco and show tunes and jazz. You don't think musicians sit around and only listen to music like theirs? I read an interview years ago with Tom Waits and he said he was listening to his kis rap cds. Musicians get their inspiration from everywhere.
their charisma and performance capability are nice but wouldn't it be nice if they could write songs that aren't so damn repetitive and predictable. their crappy new hit makes me punch my radio into silence. they would make an enjoyable mid-league indie band but if they are the standard bearers of punk now then heaven help us.
No, they're not the standard bearers, they're mainstreamers, which is about the opposite end of the spectrum. That is, they make punk accessible to mainstream kids who wouldn't hear it otherwise. I can play Green Day for my 8-year-old and she gets it in a way that playing Bad Brains won't, at least now. If it sparks her interest to start listening to more daring punk, then I'm good with that.
....she'll despise Green Day. Bands like Bad Brains do not appeal to an eight year old, because they sing about adult themes like class war, working class ideals, & the struggles that no child has yet to experience. Which is why Green Day is not punk, they're the opening theme music to Romper Room,...
Don't get me started on how Green Day are on Reprise, owned by Time Warner, interlaced with ExxonMobil, & how supporting Green Day is supporting the same people who started two illegal wars,... way to go, 'punk'rock!
I know when I saw Green Day back in the summer of 2002 (I think that's when they were touring for their "Warning" album), in Indianapolis they invited a kid up on stage (14 year old) to play "Blitzkrieg Bop" on guitar while Billie Joe got the crowd involved. He even told the kid "Now if you f*** this up, all these people out here are going to kick your ass," but he said it in a way that was in jest obviously, but still, talk about pressure.
I also remember seeing a show on MTV2 for that same tour where they had a whole group of people take over for them - a drummer, a bass player, a guitarist, and a singer. They did "Blitzkrieg Bop" then too, but talk about an experience. It is pretty much guaranteed you'll find at least 1 guitar player in the crowd that can play well enough to do punk songs, so it's a planned event I'm sure, but I doubt it would be staged. Talk about an experience of a lifetime though!
That show remains to be one of the best live shows I've ever been too.
Green Day: So, like here we play these 3-4 descending power chords in this choppy way, all kind of synched-up like.
Producer: Yeah, and then what happens?
Green Day: And then we just keep doing that for three minutes.
Producer: We got a winner!
Didn't we have a Green Day thread just a couple of days ago?
What happened, did somebody die?
Because otherwise, no one cares.
So many kickass underground bands out there, and this sell out band gets two threads in as many weeks?
David seemed to enjoy himself and did not get attacked by someone in a Glenn Beck mask. Give him the slack to enjoy something other than nutburger monitoring.
FINE Mr FancyPants!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3CR0faCExw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oj9ZMxFC7o&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwJswad9hfA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp0OUnQiMW8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3O_jo2zLRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3O_jo2zLRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOrFlGWaMPU
the selling out part-I've had this discussion with my kids-Like everyone else, I hope music makers don't get caught in a time warp about the good old bad old days.As our lives change and progress so do theirs.So it only makes sense that as their lives change,so does their perspectives on things.You can never look at the same thing again in the same light once you've moved on.
Referring to a band as "selling out" has always bothered me a bit. It's nice to think of your favorite band staying pure, or true to their vision, or whatever cliche you'd like to invoke, but a little dose of reality would be nice.
Because if all you want is to write/perform your music pure to your own dream, then you stay in your garage, or your basement, or whatever. You don't play it for anyone else, you don't consider the audience - because see, they're irrelevant to your vision. Oh, and you don't perform with a group, because then you might have to compromise.
that's true, but please refer to JohnnyThiefs post @ 7:02
It's not necessarily about the music changing, so much as who's signin the checks.
believe or not you will get old too.Where are all the protesters from the '60's.I'll tell ya.They are living in condos in Sarasota fl.
Boring and NOT punk...it's pop.
I am going to see Green Day in August in Salt Lake and this and other Green Day videos is getting me really excited to see them. It will be my first Green Day show and they seem to be able to put on a good one.
Green Day sucks.
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