Monday was the much-anticipated and long-awaited GREEN DAY concert!!! It was so much fun! It was the best concert I have ever been to. I left feeling like I should mail them an envelope with fifty more dollars in it. And when was the last time you feel like you owed the band money? Thanks to my fine freeway driving skills and the knowledge that Arizona folk don't show up for things as early as Utah folks, we arrived 40 minutes early which was just enough time to use the restroom, buy T-shirts (I am now the world's best sister), and get snowcones! Snowcones should be served at more concerts, I think. Anyway, no one seemed particularly interested in AFI, the opening act, who strangely took the stage ten minutes early. When has a concert ever started early? If you ever have a chance to see part of AFI live, please do so because the lead singer is hilarious. The only word I can use to describe his performance is "angular." Ponder that. Paul couldn't controlling his giggling. Here's a picture of us with bonus Facebook angle.
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| From T-Mobile Pictures |
You can see our seats were a little far back, but perfectly centered. I figured Green Day would come on around 8 and play until 10, maybe 10:15 with encore. Oh no. That is not how Green Day rolls. They played for three hours straight. No intermission, only two slow songs the entire setlist. It was AWESOME. High-energy does not even begin to describe it. We were on our feet the whole time, bouncing around and singing along. There was a lot of audience participation--some people sang, two people played the guitar, and one guy dove off the stage into the audience. At one point, there was an entire crowd of people on stage singing. It was pretty sweet. The highlight may have been watching Billie Joe (the singer and guitarist) help a 14 yr old kid play the guitar. He'd been called up and played the first part of a medley, but it quickly became apparent that he couldn't play the rest. Rather than just thanking him and sending him back in the crowd, Billie Joe bent down and showed him which notes to play for the rest of the song. I thought that was really, really nice. The kid already had his cool concert experience, but Green Day went the extra mile and sacrificed some of the attention and energy just to be nicer to some random kid. Going the extra mile kind of sums up the concert in general. Lots of pyrotechnics, lots of running, lots of everything. I had heard that Green Day was one of the best live bands and that was no exaggeration. When Billie Joe yelled at the end of the concert that the band considered it "our honor, no, our ****ing privilege" to perform, you actually believed him.
Did I mention there was a homage to Benny Hill in lieu of an intermission?
