Green Day at Giants Stadium
Two concerts in two weeks: I haven’t done that since college. To my surprise, I wound up at Giants Stadium last night with Amy, the two of us beneficiaries of Paul Bechtel’s generosity.
It was weird for me to go to a Green Day show: when Dookie came out, I was about as far from punk rock as one could get. My brother got it and listened to it incessantly as I mocked him for not liking Billy Joel.
Yeah, Billy Joel. You couldn’t get any squarer than I was when I was twelve years old. It’s a miracle that I’ve done anything regarded as even moderately cool in my lifetime.
But I came around eventually, and while I didn’t become a Green Day fan until I heard American Idiot for the first time, I gained at least a modicum of respect for their music by the time I was in high school.
I expected Green Day to play for around 75, maybe 90 minutes. Instead, they played for two hours straight, running all over their end-zone-sized stage the entire time. I had a hard time standing through the whole thing; I don’t know how Billie Joe Armstrong managed to spend two hours running from one 80-foot video screen to the other, then out the stage tongue into the center of the crowd and back. Lots of practice, I guess.
Anyway, the show was a punk rock spectacle of the highest order (even if that is an oxymoron). They opened with five songs from American Idiot (the first three tracks—which prompted me to turn to Amy and ask, “Are they just going to play the record right though?”—then Are We The Waiting? and St. Jimmy), then launched into their extensive (and, to me, largely unknown) back catalog. There were fireworks and flame-throwers, water cannons for hosing down the audience, and a very respectable impromptu band culled from the front floor section. Even with all of Billie Joe’s cheap pops (of which I lost count somewhere around 30), last night was one of the most fun concerts I’ve ever seen.
After the final-final-final song (a solo Time of Your Life), there was a five-minute fireworks finale behind the stage. It was the perfect over-the-top conculsion to an over-the-top stadium rock show.
Later: The Times has a review. I don’t think they liked it.
September 02, 2005 - 10:23 AM