Whenever I go see Green Day, I tend to think, ahead of getting to the concert, that maybe I’ve just built up their past concert appearances in my mind, and that maybe they’re not really as great as I’ve come to believe. How could they be? It seems improbable that my wildly fanciful notions of how magical and perfect their live shows are could really be accurate. I must have been building them up in my head, right? So as I’m heading to the show, I’m thinking that maybe I should brace myself for a letdown…

And then Green Day come on stage, and they blow me away. Not only do they live up to my fanciful expectations, but they surpass them. That feeling of awe and delight that came over me at the last concert, and the ones before that, is fleeting and hard to remember accurately, because it’s just that: a feeling. But it turns out that even my over-the-top recollection is actually pale and inadequate compared to the real thing. When I’m there, in person, it all comes back, so fully it knocks me over.

I wrote this next part right after leaving the show, when I found myself enchanted with Philadelphia for no reason at all, even as I was fully of aware of how much better I like New York and couldn’t wait to get back there. Uh, it may be a bit over-the-top…

Maybe it’s the whole Green Day aura that surrounds a special trip to see this very special set of mesmerizing magical men, who are just like an improbable fairy tale. They make the world sweet and sparkling. For a few hours, it’s like you live on another plane, another reality where everything pops, is more beautiful, has more meaning, and is just complete, grinning, stupid, delight. And it leaves behind a streak of magic fairy dust that you carry with you back in your daily world, where everything is suddenly more lovely, more perfect. I’m sitting at the train station as I write this, facing the track, under fluorescent lights. It’s a dismal place, except not now, because Green Day touched it with their magic wand. (No, not that magic wand… get your head out of the gutter!)

As always, it’s hard to find the words to describe what Green Day is like. I started to write “what seeing Green Day is like,” but that’s not it. It’s like they have an essence that just is, and you sometimes, now and then if you’re really really lucky, get to be in its presence and become touched by it, and then you carry it with you, like a glow.

Anyone reading this who is not a crazy-obsessed fan of Green Day will surmise that I am a blithering idiot. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, that’s Mrs. Blithering Idiot to you!

That’s the end of the waxing insane portion of this show recap… (or maybe not).

I’m not going to write about the particular things that happened at this show. You can read those reviews elsewhere. (I haven’t looked at any yet but I can add some links later.) For me, it’s not about the particular moments, it’s a whole magical experience that leaves you dizzy and slack-jawed. I know people like to relate the little tidbits, the moments when Billie Joe said this or did that, or one of the other band members did whatever, but there is no essential moment for me. Yes, there were bits I noticed and loved, like the fact that when they played Welcome to Paradise, and then again in parts of other songs, like Basket Case and She, Billie Joe played his guitar like he was 22 again, using the same wide-legged stance, with one leg thrust forward, and his head thrashing. He’s done so much since then that sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s that same guy. And it’s lovely — hell, it’s pretty damn thrilling — to be reminded.

Even the professional music reviewers, whose job it is to write about every concert, whether they like the band or not, can’t help but gush that Billie Joe is a mesmerizing performer. He doesn’t stop for an instant. (And it’s so cute that he’s just so happy. At one point he was having so much fun running around that he almost forgot he had to dash back to the mic to sing the next verse.) But if I had to pick one word to describe his stage performance it’s his incredible generosity. He’s like the party host who gives all of himself, who reaches out to every single person, with everything he has, to make damn sure that every last one is having a great time. I think he would be handing out trays of cookies in the crowd if he could. (When he does run up into the stands it’s funny to see the security guy, whose job it is to protect him, having an aneurysm.)

At the very beginning of the show, in the middle of the first song, Billie Joe brought a guy up on stage to tell him, personally, to calm down. “They want to kick you out,” he said. He held him by the shoulders to talk right into is eyes and gently get him to listen to reason. What other rock star puts himself out like that for someone, and for a guy who was being a jerk, no less? It was a beautiful, revealing snapshot. (There’s a video and a photo of it.)

But it’s not just a good time he’s offering up, it’s also joy and redemption. (I knew I wasn’t done being over-the-top…) Billie Joe is jet-powered, raunchy and insubordinate, yet he’s also deeply soulful and emotional. His preacher shtick (saving an audience member) and his serious indictment of the hypocrisy of (at least some) religious leaders, specifically in East Jesus Nowhere, have an unspoken counterpoint: you can be saved for real, just not by following hollow leaders or believing hollow lies. Your salvation is right here: it’s all around you every day. You can be generous, look outward, care about what’s happening in the world. He would never presume to tell you what to do, but he’s a shining example.

How he feels about all of us seems to be what he expressed in one of his earliest songs:

I’m losing what’s left of my dignity
A small price I’ll pay to see that you’re happy
Forget all the disappointments you have faced
Open up your worried world and let me in.

————————-
Update: Review from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Another review and setlist.

Write a comment