Green Day: A concert review

“New England!” shouts Billie Joe Armstrong, the singer of Grammy-Award Winning rock act Green Day. The crowd yells like a pack of wild dogs, and would you expect a reaction any different towards a band that has been making hits for almost 20 years? On Monday August 16th, Green Day played hit songs (and a deep cut or two) from their underground hit album Kerplunk to their critically acclaimed 21st Century Breakdown. This being the second time the band came to Massachusetts in the past year or so, the boys had much more freedom with what they played. The band started out strong with a quadruplet of hits from 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. During the last of the four (“East Jesus Nowehere”), Billie Joe Armstrong, a front man tour-de-force, called up a young child to be saved (only shortly after to be pushed to the floor by pyrotechnics). The next 6 beautiful cacophonies were comprised entirely of material from the bands last two records: American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown. One of the most notable parts of these first 11 songs was when a (n intoxicated) woman was called upon stage to ‘sing’ “Are We the Waiting”. After a grandiose “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” sing-a-long Mr. Armstrong asked “Are any of you out there old school Green Day fans?” before jumping into a once-in-a-lifetime rendition of Nimrod’s “Scattered” (which included a cover of Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself”. After “Scattered” followed two tracks from Kerplunk and then a switch back to the hits with “Hitchin’ A Ride”. Right after was another rare performance of 1995’s “J.A.R.”, one of the few songs written solely by Bassist Mike Dirnt. After an hour of awesome, the guys decided to show the crowd what “nostalgia” meant by cutting into the hits of Green Day’s 1994 breakthrough Dookie. Even though it had already been 2 hours, the band combined 1997’s “King for a Day” with Rhythm and Blues classic “Shout” which all members of the band (including the touring band) sang! The main set ended with a piano heavy “21 Guns” and a green light heavy “Minority”, the only Warning track of the night. The gang o’ three played an electric encore of American Idiot hits and an acoustic encore ending with cliché classic “Good Riddance”. A group who’s longevity has been questioned by many a critic, Green Day can bust out a 3-hour concert of hits like no other band.