It was so wonderful. The openning band, Sugarcult, was amazing. Too bad people here didn’t know them, and I was essentially the only one who knew their songs. Still, me and three guys tried to start a mosh pit. It wasn’t very sucessful until New Found Glory came on. I don’t like them much though. But Green Day… wowzers! The pyro was fun, although a little random. At the end of the night, during their encore, they blasted tissue paper confetti and it was a beautiful sight to see everyone involuntarily reaching up to grab a piece or two as they fell down. And when they played Good Riddance, it brought back such memories of high schoo life.
Ah, but every show comes with young barely teen girls who don’t know how rock shows work. Heh, it would have been amusing to watch them get upset over getting pushed and shoved with the music, but I was too busy to care. It was just great fun, especially when I wake up the next moring all sore and bruises all over. My parents think it’s masochistic behaviour, but I think it’s all good fun.
I went to see them back in… oh, Og… 95, I think? They hadn’t released the CD after Dookie yet, but they played two “new” songs from their upcoming album, “Geek Stink Breath” and “Walking Contradiction”. Absolute pandemonium. This was in Fredericton, NB, and near the end of the show, Billy Joe stripped down to just his socks and his guitar. They were banned from playing there for a few years, after that. Worth it, every moment.
I was so close to the front, when he sang “Going to Pasalacqua” he spit in my eye. I felt blessed. (I was only 16, he was my God at that time!)
The Green Day show I saw in 2002 was one of the worst concerts I’ve ever been to. They didn’t play anything! They took five minutes between every song to talk to the audience and yell at them for not screaming louder. Then they did this thing where they brought three people from the audience up on stage to play the bridge on one of their songs, and it took twenty minutes to get it all together, and the people only played for like a minute. I think they only played twenty songs in all, and the concert was two hours long. It was the last American date on their tour, though, so maybe that was why it sucked, maybe they were tired or something. Still, I was pretty pissed off at the time.
In the middle of the set, he did make some “sex noises” and ended it with shouting “Fuck me!!” to the crowd. All the girlies screamed really loud, and I just stood there amused, wondering how many of them knew Billy Joe is 32. And is married. And has two kids. :eek:
I saw them in '95 too. They spent most of the evening telling us (Detroit) what pussies we were. There was much booing at the show, but when they actually played songs (off of the immortal ‘Dookie’) the jr. high mosh pit was quite impressive.
I still do like these guys, and think ‘Dookie’ is one of the few albums I can listen to start to finish without skipping a song. And every new song the put out, I really seem to dig.
Happy
I also saw them in 2002 when they were touring with Blink 182 and Saves the Day. They were very good, but overstayed their welcome AFAIC. They did some of the things that continuity eror mentioned like taking a long time to find audience members to play their song. Eventually, they ran out of things to play and started taking requests from the audience. This would have been fine if we didn’t have one more band left to play (maybe Blink wasn’t ready or something…who knows), but their segment went on far too long.
