A year ago this week, Green Day's juggernaut seemed in full and unstoppable motion.
There was the promotional circuit ahead of a wildly ambitious trilogy, including a ridiculous interview on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show where they happily previewed more or less the entire record. They triumphed at a small gig at London's 2,000 capacity Shepherd's Bush Empire a few nights before a weekend-stealing not-so-secret set at Reading Festival.
A rehab admission and underwhelming sales figures for their albums - Tre charted at 31 - halted the momentum of the campaign, but the band nevertheless find themselves back in London ahead of a big slot at Reading Festival.
While the studio work hasn't excited as well as previous highs, Green Day remain a big draw live. They were the first act to sell 60,000 tickets at the Emirates Stadium at a show that got five-star reviews, as well as further headlining festivals across Europe.
The fact this gig sold out in eight minutes when it was announced as a warm-up show before this weekend's Reading and Leeds Festival slots is further proof the band are still a huge live draw.
They certainly get to work with eagerness. It helps a die-hard crowd took the recent trilogy to their hearts a lot easier than critics did, with new songs like opener 99 Revolutions and the surging Stop When The Red Lights Flash greeted as if they were decades-old anthems.
The best of the new songs played in these exchanges is the pulsing and urgent Let Yourself Go from Uno, which replaces the overlong Oh Love in the setlist.
Everything gets a fantastic reaction from the heaving throngs assembled under Billie Joe's nose but its the older tunes in the book that push the audience into overdrive. Know Your Enemy - the only song played from 21st Century Breakdown - is political power-punk, all surging chords, first-in-the-air melodies and an opportunity to bring one of the front row on stage, get him to sing and then get him stage-diving into the crowd.
This is before the dig into American Idiot. The 2004 success story makes its first presence with the pummeling Letterbomb, before the bombastic one-two of Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams creates one long epic sing along.
The AI-onwards portion of the evening is bookended nine songs in by Wake Me Up When September Ends, which begins with just Billie Joe on his own before he is joined by the rest of the band. After this comes the oldies portion, which is usually spread across the band's 26 years.
Instead, in what could well be a taste of things to come in the Berkshire and Yorkshire mud this weekend, the band dust off their seminal pop-punk LP Dookie and unleash it in full.
Its a glorious portion of tight punk riffery and chances for the heavy crowd to get on their moshing shoes. Punctuating this are the glorious singalongs that have been mainstays of Green Day sets down the ages - Welcome To Paradise, Basket Case, She and all.
It is also impressive how the band don't let up. The instrumentation is as tight and fresh as it was when it was committed to tape some 19 years ago. It is also unwavering while Billie Joe leads the crowd in a cycle of "Heyyyyyyohs". Not that they're strictly needed given how much the crowd reciprocates hysteria to the sound bursting from the stage.
The end of Dookie is all too soon - if anything it needs All By Myself to feel complete - but it leads into the usual tricks - the storming march of Panic Song soundtracks fun with water cannons and t-shirt guns into the crowd before Billie Joe continues his seemingly-unstoppable momentum by bouncing across the stage for St. Jimmy.
Its impeccable to watch how the quality never lets up - one wonders in particular how the now-40 year old Tre Cool is able to keep his relentless pace over the 2 hours+ played for our enjoyment this evening. He is fine form, keeping to his usual mix of tight grooves and outlandish soloing, most notably on Dookie opener Burnout.
A final one-two leads to the encore, with the marathon rush of American Idiot and Jesus of Suburbia sending the crowd into one final run-through of delirious delight.
And if the Tre album track Brutal Love feels an odd end like it had previously done at June's Emirates Stadium gig, Billie Joe is soon on stage running through old favourite Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) to wrap up a delightful evening.
It certainly proved that, for all the perceptions of an 'annus horribilis' in camp Green Day, their value as a live band has not been diminished. If it's this good on Friday then Reading Festival will be in for one hell of an opening night.
4/5
Support came from Frank Turner, who only confirmed his support slot at lunchtime on the day of the gig. His set was a simple set with just him on guitar and his band's regular keyboard player Matt Nasir on mandolin. Turner seems to be doing well despite recently requiring surgery on a slipped back disc that could've ruled him out of gigs for three months.
Instead he's back on a stage he has previously sold out, and he and his fellow player delivered a well-ran acoustic run through a variety of new material and old hits, plus a surprise cover of Live and Let Die. They end with a rousing rendition of I Still Believe, which sounds fresher here then it did a year ago at the Olympic opening ceremony.
No comments:
Post a Comment