Green Day

Last week, Michael Bérubé wrote that “Nick Lowe’s ‘Cruel to Be Kind’ is the most perfect pop song ever written.” A fine choice, I must say. Bérubé heroically rejects a distinction between ‘rock’ and ‘pop’: “We do not think that the former category is inhabited by edgy artists and assorted Culture Heroes whereas the latter is inhabited by Tommy James and the Shondells.” But, he continues: “Still, it remains true that if a song has too much fire and/or grit and/or passion in it, it exceeds the “Cruel to Be Kind” standard in obvious ways.”

Now certainly they often exceed “Cruel to Be Kind” by a considerable margin along the dimensions of fire and grit and passion, but I was still surprised that in some 193 comments – many bringing up excellent contenders – nobody mentioned the premier “hard pop” band of the last decade: Green Day. A few random notes on the concert I saw last night follow below.

First, their live show is absolutely explosive – and not just because of the explosions, of which there were plenty, synched surprisingly well with the music. I haven’t had the sense of a band riding such a powerful wave since Led Zepplin played “Rock and Roll.” The show was loud and rocking and clear-sounding with insanely great, catchy hooks – what more could you ask for? It was just thrilling, and the crowd was delirious.

There was a low-level, inchoate political vibe that seemed a little more than just the expected anti-authoritarian posturing. They opened with “American Idiot” and closed their set with “Minority” and introduced “Holiday” as “a big ‘fuck you’ to the politicians who have power right now.” But the line of the night was certainly when Billie Joe Armstrong introduced the band, culminating in this: “And I’m George W. Bush.” Crowd: “Boo!” Armstrong: “You better hope you don’t go bankrupt.” Well, it got a big laugh from me, anyway.

The one really pandering moment, and the one I could have done without, was a masturbation bit, but that was mercifully brief.

I was expecting to be the oldest person there and maybe to see some of my students. I was doubly wrong. There seemed to be very few college kids there, but plenty of people my age – late 30s to early 40s – but they were there with their middle-school kids. Probably three-quarters of the crowd was between, say, 12 and 16. (One of my 4-1/2 year old’s favorite songs for at least the past year has been Green Day’s cover of the Ramone’s “Outsider” – when it comes on, she drops everything and just starts laughing and running through the house. Still, she stayed home.)

Before they went on, the soundtrack was obviously the stuff the members of Green Day (who are in their early 30s) grew up with: Joan Jett, Cheap Trick, Go-Gos, Clash. The crowd was really into it, singing along. The final tune before they went on was the Village People’s “YMCA” that got a roar from the crowd and most everyone dancing out the letters. Later, Green Day threw in a Queen cover (“We Are the Champions”) that fit seamlessly into their set and went over big.

Someone is an absolute genius at either miking, mixing, tuning – or maybe just playing – the drums. They get a big, booming sound that is never muddy, always remains crystal clear – every hit is distinct, even when very fast. For a bunch of songs, including the new ones, they brought in some extra musicians. But for the “oldies” – you know, their tunes from the mid-to-late ‘90s – they stayed a trio. And Armstrong’s peculiar singing-only British accent seems to have faded.

The opening act was My Chemical Romance. Their thirty-minute set was okay, but thrash isn’t really my thing. They did, however, supply plenty of by-the-numbers (not to say Spinal Tap) moments: plenty of screaming “Are you ready to ROCK?!”; guitarist flinging around big hair; even a song about “skeletons and coming back from the grave.” But at the same time, they threw out a bunch of comments that, although they didn’t seem to be intended as funny, tickled me. Things like: “This next song is our one ballad. So put your lighters and cell-phones in the air.” And this – I guess they knew their audience: “How many of you are at your first show? Well, I want you to lean over and hug your mom or dad for bringing you to the best fucking first show you ever could see.” And this: “Ladies, if you’re ever at a show watching some sleazy band – maybe they look like us, maybe they look like Motley Crue – and they ask you to show your tits for a backstage pass, I want you to spit right in their face.” I had a vague sense that these kinds of comments, if only I could decode them, hold some kind of key to the current teen ethos.

If you go to see them – and I certainly encourage it – I’d stay away from the floor. It really didn’t look safe or fun. It seems to me that something has changed since I was the age of most of this audience and went to rock shows. Back then, I remember seeing security beating people up and being pretty afraid of them. Now I’m more afraid of the crowd moshing and body surfing. In fact, the security seemed to be doing an amazing job of actually catching people safely as they were hurled toward the stage. Maybe you just notice different things when you get old.