From Anahney to the Middle East
Green Day concert was fucken excellent.
Wednesday, 9 March, I got in the car with brother and drove to Joseph's place. Picked him up. We got drive-thru at maccas, then got to the olympic park. We spent the time inbetween getting there and the concert in the line for merchandise. I bought my first band t-shirt (I'm a bit behind, aren't I?). My brother got asked if he had drugs on him, stoner. Our seats were way up in the nosebleeds, but we could see the stage fine.
Simple Plan was...well, to be optimistic, they play better in concert than on a CD. Okay, so they sucked. Though I think it's mostly the lead singer's problem. Things that pissed me off about him:
- He kept calling the audience "Sydney, Australia." As if Sydney, Canada were right next door and could get confused
- He is quite simply, a wannabe. He kept fitting 'sexy' in everything he said in some wannabe way.
- The best song they did wasn't theirs. Further, it was a Darkness song (I Believe in a Thing Called Love), so he saw it appropriate that before the song, he got the lights out, then said "Oh no, the darkness is scaring me." Plus, he can't do a falsetto voice.
- In fact, I'm now starting to think it's his voice/lyrical talent that is the only reason Simple Plan are so bad. If they are anything like the traditional band, the lead singer would write most of the lyrics. I'm not sure if that's the case here, but if it is, it'll support my argument.
Anyway, I say this cos when the band started playing some songs I didn't know, I was thinking "hey, this isn't SO bad" then he started singing in his whiny nasal voice "My life is so bad and I act like I'm half my age and it's only me against the world and everything bad happens to me" and I'm wishing I brought my iPod again.
- I concur with Joseph: When the lead singer said "We've already been in Australia twice." He replied "Don't make it a habit."
Unfortunately, he announced they'd be touring independently in September.
It was just as well Green Day made up for it, and how.
PS There was a drinking bunny in the interval
Green Day started off with playing American Idiot. American Idiot is one of those explosive songs which you have to begin a concert with. Billie Joe stopped playing his guitar in the middle of the song to get reactions from the crowd. Screaming 'Ayyy Ohhh' and getting the audience to repeat it. In fact, if anything, that was the one drawback, since he did it about 10 times. They then played Jesus of Suburbia (off the American Idiot album). Jesus of Suburbia is a 9 minute medley of five songs and is one of my favourite tracks off the new album. It totally rocked live. I was singing along to all the songs. Billie Joe did something sneaky and change the words of one like from "We are the kids of war and peace, from Anaheim to the Middle East" to "from Sydney to the middle East" which made me create a new city called Anahney.
After that, they played Holiday ("This song is not anti-American, this song is anti-war"), which I also find kickarse. Then Are We the Waiting/St Jimmy. I've never really enjoyed Are We the Waiting that much, but St Jimmy is one of those real fast paced songs that goes off live. After that, they diverged from American Idiot and started to play some classics.
Longview, She, Hitchin' a Ride, Basket Case, Brain Stew, Jaded, Minority, King for one Day (in which Billie Joe wore a crown, ha ha). They also played Wake me Up When September Ends (American Idiot). There were also some others, I think there was a Green Day song I hadn't heard before or knew the name of. Then a cover of a song I'd never heard, then a cover of the song that goes 'you know you make me wanna shout', and a cover of Queen's We Are the Champions
After going off stage to hear the crowd say "Encore/One More", they returned and played Boulevard of Broken Dreams, When I Come Around and Good Riddance (Time of your Life) as a finale, which was inevitable.
Around the middle of the night, they got three people from the moshpit to come up and play for them. Which was great artist-audience rapport, though I get the feeling the bassist wasn't a real bassist since Mike Dirnt had to keep assisting her. The guy who played guitar got the guitar! And he was from Adelaide! Bastard!
Billie Joe: So where are you from?
Guy: Adelaide
Crowd boos
Billie Joe: Where are you from now?
Guy: Sydney
Crowd Cheers
Billie Joe: Yeah, you can keep the guitar now
They also used some pyrotechnics. Okay, if you compare it to Rammstein, where band members set themselves on fire onstage, it was nothing. But still, the bangs and spurts of fire added to the atmosphere.
It was fucking excellent, but there were some things which would have made it better:
- If I was in the moshpit (duh)
- If they played some more songs. I've always wanted to hear some of their new ones live like Letterbomb and Homecoming (but thats another 9 minuter). Also, they didn't play Walking Contradiction, Waiting, Redundant (though I'm unsure if Redundant would make a good live track) or Welcome to Paradise. I would have liked to hear those too, but I spose they can't stay up all night
- So they could play more songs, they should have kicked Simple Plan off early. How much would that have rocked!
Interestingly, they banned cameras and recording devices, but even when Simple Plan came on, there were billions of camera flashes.
Less memorable was spending 30 minutes getting out of the car park, but it was stil more favourable then catching a train home (if there was one)
So yeah, great night. I'm in a live music mood now.