Saw last night's show (08/10) in Chicago.

I took my 14-year-old daughter - who worships the ground that Billie Joe trods upon - and I was just one a huge contingent of parents taking preteens to Green Day. Plus, I earned cool guy points for not wearing a Hawaiian shirt like most dads (it seemed like a uniform )

It's a big, slick stadium show, with lots of exulations for the crowd to sway their arms, wave cell phones, do the wave or yell things, plus plenty of flash pots, confetti, strobes - the whole nine yards.

But for all the standard rock cliches (easy, riotous cheers for every "Chicago!" mention), I have to say they put on a pretty enjoyable show, and that's from a jaded old punk weened on The Damned and The Ramones.

Solid. Glad to hear it was a good show...Usually Green Day blow the roof off the joint. Can you remember the set list? I'm seeing JEW and Green Day tomorrow...can't wait.

MATT

They opened with American Idiot, right into Jesus of Suburbia. As for the rest of the set, I couldn't give you the order, but according to my daughter the only song they didn't play that she wanted to hear was Macy's Day Parade.

There are a couple of unexpected covers, and a few other cool surprises I wouldn't want to spoil for you.

JEW was the victim of a rather muddy mix, but Green Day sounded excellent.

Fun show. Have a rockin' good time....

damn, seeing them at the end of the month. from what i have heard they change setlists to where some nights they play "american idiot" in its entirety

also, was the only other band jimmy eat world?

I saw Green Day a couple years ago and they really impressed me. I'm glad you liked the show.

Yep, they were the only opening band. Played about 30 minutes or so...

I saw them earlier in May--for all the people that have seen them, did Billie Joe give his guitar to the kid who was invited to play on stage with them?

i would have thought that they would have played at least 45 min. how long did green day play (approx.)

I saw the Chicago concert, too. Excellent, high energy show.

The guitar went to the girl picked to play bass. The drummer was asked to stage dive.

Green Day played close to 2 hours. The setlist was pretty similar to setlists I've seen for spring and summer shows. They didn't play the whole American Idiot album - I think they did 7 of the AI songs.

Tre Cool sure goes through a lot of drumsticks!

i am guessing pit people (me) have a better chance of being "chosen" to be on stage (even though i can't play any instrument for shit)

I have a pair of GA tickets to the September 1st show at Giants Stadium. What time would you guys suggest I get there to get to the front?

Hard to say, but at the Chicago show the main floor seemed sparsely populated (easily less than 1/3 full) during the Jimmy Eat World set so that it would have been easy to get right next to the stage, especially if you're bold or have experience casually squirming your way upfront.

Plus, for all the punk swagger and attitude of the band, the audience was a wildly disparate mix of ages, with as many preteens (and younger) with parents as there were seasoned concert goers, so the makeup of the crowd made it appear like it would have been less of a challenge to get up close than it would be at a lot of other shows.

I don't think the doors opened until 6:00, and there were long lines around the arena when we got there around 5:45, but once inside very few were on the floor - mostly milling around at the t-shirt stands, etc. It was so uncrowded at that time that I was wishing I had bought GA tickets, because I wouldn't have had a problem getting up close. Oh well.

By the time Green Day took the stage the floor had filled in pretty tightly (I believe the show was sold out), or so it looked from my vantage point.

I'm guessing this had a lot to do with the fact that the show was on a Wednesday, with a 7:00 start time. Probably tough for a lot of working types (aka all the parents) to battle traffic and still get there on time. In fact, the seats around us didn't fill in until the first few minutes of the Green Day set.

your mileage may vary.......

If it was me going, I'd find out what time doors open, and get to the venue a couple of hours before that. Or at least that's what I would have done in my younger days when 'general admission' meant get there the morning of and spend the day in line. Ah, the wackiness of youth...

I have never gone to a show SUPER early for a GA concert. Just get there a half an hour before the ticket says and get on the floor. As soon as a good opener or the headliner gets on stage, you move up naturally. Just keep fighting towards the front. In fact with Green Day, I got there halfway thru My Chemical Romance, and by the time Green Day was on their second song, I was front row in front of Billie Joe's cat-walk.

i concur with everyone thus far -- i saw them back in may and the show was great. i have not found many torrents from this tour (an alberta one had the same setlist as the STL show). if you have the chance go see them.

I don't think I would enjoy seeing Green Day live .. the only punk I like is older stuff too. On the other hand, I would love to see The Damned or Ramones .. have you ever made it one of their performances ?

There's no denying the old stuff. Two amazing shows that I will never forget were The Ramones (around 80-81 in Galesburg, IL of all places) and The Clash at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago (circa London Calling). I still remember 'em like it was yesterday.....

I've seen the likes of The Stranglers to Patti Smith to PIL to the Dead Kennedys, even prefab goofiness of The Plasmatics thrown in for good measure. But the thing about Green Day - and this is coming from a "dad" of a rabid teenager who I raised with a love of all that early "punk" stuff - is that I do like their music, though the whole "punk" label seems neatly manufactured, especially in light of their stadium-antics like orchestrated crowd cheers and the like. They seem to know who makes up a good part of their American Idiot audience, and I don't necessarily fault them for playing to them, to a degree. Billie Joe Armstrong still dropped "fuck" a million times, so it's not like it was a completely sanitized front.

With that said, their current show is a well done arena performance, and I honestly dug the energy. And in all my decades of going to concerts, seeing them pull three random kids out of the audience to take over for the band was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. That must have been an unbelievable thrill and there is still a part of me that is insanely jealous......

On a vaguely related note:
if you like the "old school" of punk, I can't recommend the DVD documentary Punk: Attitude enough. It comes out in September, and is a complete history of the punk movement, from the beginning on through today.

I would have really liked to see Green Day....



.....in 1994.


Seriously.

Yeah, actually I saw that Punk: Attitude Documentary on the IFC channel twice, it was really good, they covered a lot of material in it. I think everyone who's into punk now should watch it to understand where it all came from and how it started ..

Sounds like the shows you went to were awesome. I wish I was a bit older and was around when all of those bands were coming up. You wouldn't happen to have pics from any of those shows?

They were good then, but those were some funny times. "Dookie" had just got big and there was a HUGE backlash against them. Tons of "Sell out!" cries. (I thought "Dookie" smoked over anything they've previously done. I don't care how popular a band or album is. If it's good, it's good.) Even Nirvana had those type of people badmouthing them in '92, but not nearly to the extent that Green Day did in '94. Green Day even would go as far in interviews to say "We are not punk. We never were. We never carried the 'punk flag'."

NOW it appears that Green Day is finally accepted by all ("punks" and mainstream). Good for them! "American Idiot" (despite it's politics) is a great album and they deserve to be praised.

green day is one of those bands that i wouldn't say i'm a fan of, but when i actually hear a bunch of their songs back to back, i'm always amazed at they have consistently put out good music

That was pretty much my take on Wednesday when I saw them. Didn't realize how many of their songs I knew/liked.

As someone who saw them in 94 and again earlier this year, I would rather see them now. Back then I don't think they appreciated what they were doing. Playing a 50 minute set as a headliner is ridiculous, which is what they did then.

The show was fantastic. A big damn rock show. Lots of fire, fireworks, stadium wide sing alongs and lots of classic punk fist pumping. They really played a solid set, filled with lots of old and new songs, had a TON of audience interaction and really played to the huge crowd. It had rained on and off during the day, but luckily the weather cleared for the concert.

Jimmy Eat World was pretty great too, but with a set just over 30min, didn't get a lot of time to really kick things into high gear. Overall though, the whole evening was great. The crowd was rocking and sweating the night away, cramped like sardines and loving every minute of it. I've seen Green Day a few times, but not with a show this BIG in scope...and they handled it like seasoned vets... definitely worth the price if you are a fan.

MATT

Well, back in 1994, they only had 1 major label album and two independent releases. Dookie is all of what, 30 minutes? So that covers about half of their set, if they did every song. Between then and now, they've had 4 more albums, not to mention soundtrack, compilation and B-side tracks added to their repertoire. Makes sense that they could have a longer show now.

K

I'll be seeing them on the 24th in Raleigh. Can't wait.