Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Green Day @ Madison Square Garden

Last night the wife and some friends and I went to the second and final Green Day concert at "da' Garden." It's the first time I've ever seen them and the first time I've seen any show at MSG in fifteen years (the time before was for Phil Collins in 1994 -- I was 17 at the time and I didn't pay for the tickets so there!).

Anyway, gotta hand it to Billie Joe and the boys, they put on one hell of a good show.

Opening act was a British band called the Kaiser Chiefs. Lame-O that I am, I was unfamiliar with their music but some of my friends knew some of their songs. KC was really good if not exactly memorable. They played for about half-an-hour (8-8:30) and were received well if not overly enthusiastically.

Then: intermission.

Towards the end of this half-hour lull, as we spectators were getting pumped for Green Day to take the stage, who and what should come on the stage but someone dressed in a pink bunny costume ... wearing a Green Day t-shirt ... drinking a beer. The drunken bunny stumbled around the stage for a while, mooned the audience, and pulled up his shirt every so often. It was an odd if not totally crazy sight. He was quite the naughty bunny.

Then ... out came the band! Lights flashed! Voices screamed! Tre Cool ran around the stage and cheered and threw drum sticks into the audience and then Billie Joe came out and they launched immediately into "21st Century Breakdown", the name song of their new album. Shortly thereafter they jammed to "Know Your Enemy" and the crowed went nuts. At one point Billie Joe yelled, "Put down your iPhones, put down your cameras; this is a fuckin' memory, so live it!"" Or I think that's what he said.

Green Day played a lot of their old stuff and new stuff. They played a lot of stuff, even bizarre covers like "Earth Angel." They were on stage for almost three hours (9-12) and the music and hijinks's were non-stop. Amongst the hits: "When I Come Around", "Holiday", "20,000 Light Years Away", "Basket Case", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", "When September Ends" and, of course "American Idiot" (during the encore. They played MUCH more stuff than that but I can't make this the longest posting ever.)

There was moshing, jumping, fist-pumping, screeching galore. It was a real rhubarb.

The show ended on a sweet note when Billie Joe, solo with a guitar, crooned "Time of Your Life." Ahhhhhhhhhhh ... It was quite a refreshing way to end it.

The songs were interrupted by the band's various gags. This usually meant that BJA brought people on stage (usually very young people) to jam with the band (although at one point he performed a mock exorcism on a young boy. I guess he thought it was funny). At one point another young man was playing Tre Cool's drums under the watchful eyes of Monsieur Cool himself. If it had been me, I would have froze but this young drummer drummed admirably.

Also, when one of the girls selected from the audience got onto the stage, she literally assaulted Mr. Armstrong, hugging and kissing him and practically throwing him on the floor. "Ah," he must have been thinking, "'tis good to be a rock star."

Okay, I doubt that's exactly what he thought but the gist ...

I was surprised that the band didn't get into more political commentary but I guess in this post-Bush era, it would have felt moot. At one point, Billie Joe screamed about how the past decade was the craziest he ever lived through and how Bush was the worst, craziest president ever (and when Billie Joe Armstrong is calling something or someone crazy, then that must mean really friggin' crazy) but otherwise the show was about fun, not philosophy.

And it was fun. I enjoyed it. I got my money's worth. I even got my hearing back.

In short, Green Day rocked the Garden last night and I'm sure they'll be rocking for decades to come.

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