time of your life? i think not. (Green Day - Live)

Name: fetisha

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Product:	Green Day - Live
Date:	02/07/08 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday

Disadvantages: Green Day showed that they have little originality and wish to appeal more to new fans.

There have been 2 occassions in my life in which I've seen Green Day live, July 2002 and 21st June 2005.

Since 1998, Green Day had been a huge part of my musical life, and were my favourite band of all time. (I was even one of THOSE people who would learn trivia about the band members, thinking it would be of use one day).

Seeing them the first time for their International Superhits tour was absolutely incredible, words cannot describe how insatiable I was with their fantastic mix of songs from all their albums.

However, seeing them at Milton Keynes Bowl on 18/8/05 was a completely different matter. Bear in mind this was the tour for their album "American Idiot", when Green Day suddenly jumped on that political bandwagon.

Having paid around £30-£40 for the day, I expected my favourite band to put on an amazing show, different from the one I'd see 3 years prior. The set list was almost exactly the same as the time I went to see them about 3 years ago, the same amusing antics they pulled before (could they not come up with different ones for this tour? they had 3 years!) except with the painful additions of American Idiot tracks.

The set list reads as follows:

1. American Idiot
2. Jesus Of Suburbia
3. Holiday
4. Are We The Waiting
5. St Jimmy
6. Longview
7. Hitchin A Ride
8. Brain Stew
9. Jaded
10. Knowledge
11. Basket Case
12. She
13. King For A Day
14. Shout
15. Wake Me Up When September Ends
16. Minority
17. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
18. Homecoming
19. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)
20. We Are the Champions

As you can see, there was nothing from Kerplunk, 1 from SOSH (Knowledge, which wasn't even their own song), 2 off Insomniac (Brainstew and Jaded), 3 off Dookie (Basketcase, She and Longview), 2 from Nimrod (King for a Day and Good Riddance), 1 from Warning (Minority), nothing from Shenanigans and all the bloody rest from American Idiot or covers. Fair enough that it's the American Idiot tour, but there surely should be more consideration for the older fans who hope and pray that at some point, songs like "One for the Razorbacks" will be played.

Also, they were on for one hour and forty five minutes, but only actually played for an hour because of Billie Joe Armstrong elongating the middle of songs. I think I speak for many when I say that there's only so many times he can do the "say waayohh" thing before it gets very very boring. Another frustrating aspect was the amount of times he kept saying "England!" - we know we're here, we don't need reminding. A lot of the crowd became a bit bored and annoyed after a while, with many boo-ing his attempts to "liven up" the crowd.

The saddening aspect is that it appears that they only became political when it was cool to be anti-American politics, which is funny when the majority of the audience are 12 year olds who have no clue as to what's happened and are just being taught by bands that "George Bush/war/the Easter bunny are bad".


And one child, the child of Satan, after Green Day played "We are Champions", asked his mother "Was that their first single?" in which she had to reply "No, that was Queen's song". I think that statement speaks volumes about the unfortunate majority of people who go to gigs like these.

I don't think I have ever felt old until that night.


However, I was extremely impressed with Jimmy Eat World who were the support, who played a wonderful set and were great. Taking Back Sunday weren't too shabby either.

The gig was eventful in the sense that it was a beautiful hot day, I had friends with me, a decent PA system, but the music side was a bit disappointing, I loved hearing some of the music that I grew up on, but I just didn't feel moved like I did before, I just felt bored.

I'd say for huge fans of Green Day's old music should see them once, but not again, because you'll be disappointed with how unimaginative they are. However, if you got into them when American Idiot came out, you will love them.

Summary: A day wasted for old school fans.