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Contents
Information Page
Introduction: Kings Of The World
Chapter 1: Stranded In Suburbia
Chapter 2: Gilman Days
Chapter 3: Tour Today, Tour Tomorrow
Chapter 4: Moving To The Majors
Chapter 5: The Dookie Hits The Fan
Chapter 6: Rolling With The Punches
Chapter 7: Back From The Brink
Chapter 8: Going Down To Jingle Town
Chapter 9: Here A Superhit, There A Shenanigan
Chapter 10: At The Threshold
Chapter 11: Return Of The Conquering Idiot
Chapter 12: And Into The Future
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Discography
To my mother, Marcella Gaar, for always being there
INTRODUCTION
Kings Of The World
“They’d been superstars all along. The only difference was that now the whole world knew it.”
— Lawrence Livermore, Metal Hammer Presents Green Day, 2005
Date: September 24, 2005. Place: SBC Park, a 41,000-seat outdoor stadium in San Francisco, California, where Green Day will perform yet another date on the seemingly never-ending tour promoting their wildly successful album, American Idiot. So far, the record’s racked up sales of nine million worldwide, and the previous February won a Grammy award for Best Rock Album. It’s been hailed as a stunning return to form for the band: “the album of their career,” in the words of the London Times. It’s also — surprisingly from a group previously regarded as bratty punk rockers — something of a political statement, marking the first time the band members have spoken out extensively about several issues on the minds of many Americans today: the machinations of the Bush administration; the “war on terror”; the US invasion of Iraq; and how all this has been distilled, dumbed down, and relayed to the nation via “reality” TV. As Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day’s lead singer and guitarist, told a reporter at the time of the album’s release, “The country’s divided, and there’s a lot of confusion … and it’s not only confusing for my kids, it’s confusing for adults, too. Everybody just sort of feels like they don’t know where their future is heading right now, you know?”
But today isn’t just any date on the tour. The San Francisco gig, held the same day as yet more anti-war protests are being held across the country (including one in San Francisco), is the closest the band will come to doing a homecoming show. (Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt having made their live debut at a now-closed rib joint in Vallejo, some 30 miles to the north.) And at a time when other stadium acts are charging as much as $300 a ticket, Green Day has kept their ticket prices relatively inexpensive (around $50). Opening acts Flogging Molly and Jimmy Eat World have each received a warm welcome, but it’s obvious who the crowd has come to see. Giant screens on either side of the stage, bearing the Verizon logo in a nod to tour sponsor Verizon Wireless, display text messages from the attendees: “Green Day Rocks” and “Scream if you love Green Day!” along with jokes (“Go Dodgers!” which elicits boos from fans of the San Francisco Giants) and personal pleas (“I’m sorry Jan. Everyone makes mistakes. Call me.”). It’s also predominantly a young crowd, including plenty of kids and pre-teens who have come in the company of their parents, like the seven-year-old girl who walks by in a pink Green Day shirt and matching boots, holding her mother’s hand. Fans who haven’t been following the tour through online websites debate what the opening song will be: ‘American Idiot’ or ‘Welcome To Paradise’?
In the run up to Green Day’s set, the music playing over the PA system is mostly punky pop/poppy punk like Devo’s ‘Whip It’ and The Go-Go’s ‘We Got The Beat’. Five years ago, Billie Joe sang on stage with The Go-Go’s in San Francisco and went on to co-write the song ‘Unforgiven’ for the group’s 2001 reunion album. Not too many in the crowd seem familiar with Bikini Kill’s ‘Rebel Girl’ (whose lead singer, Kathleen Hanna, makes a cameo appearance on the American Idiot album), but The Beastie Boys’ ‘(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)’ gets a lot of cheers. Then a familiar trumpet fanfare brings the crowd to its feet. It’s the Village People’s ‘YMCA’, of all things, and as the song reaches the chorus, the audience stands and obligingly spells out “Y-M-C-A” with their arms en masse, as someone clad in a pink bunny suit bounces out on stage, goofing around, chugging beers, winding up the already expectant crowd even more.
Then comes a song by one of Green Day’s chief influences, The Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. It’s a song Green Day themselves have played in concert, most notably in a short tribute set at the 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony when The Ramones joined the other illustrious names already in the “Rock Hall”. When the song comes to its abrupt end, the lights go out and the crowd snaps. Those in the stands rush to the front of the seated sections, and those on the field push even tighter together in the standing-room area in front of the stage. Everyone unleashes their emotions in a fusillade of screams “probably audible on the Berkeley shoreline,” The Contra Costa Times later observes. (Contra Costa county being where Billie Joe and Mike originally hail from.)
Now the music is Richard Strauss’ majestic ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’, better known to modern audiences as the theme from Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as the music that welcomed Elvis to the stage for most of his Seventies-era shows. (As it happens, Billie Joe’s first album purchase was an Elvis record.) The screams reach a fever pitch when the members of Green Day finally appear — the core trio of guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool augmented by Jason White and Mike Pelino on guitars, and Jason Freese and Ron Blake on horns, keyboards, and assorted percussion. The ensemble blasts into ‘American Idiot’.
When Tré first hits his drums, the red curtains at the back of the stage drop to reveal three huge vertical red banners, two of which have the “zapped man” logo used in the cover artwork for Warning. The middle banner is emblazoned with the now-iconic cover image from American Idiot: a hand gripping a heart-shaped grenade (but which Billie Joe said “looks more like a strawberry” in the program for the spring and summer 2005 tour).Two additional large banners with the zapped man logo flank the stage. The band members are all dressed in black, with little individual touches adding a bit of colour: Billie Joe and Tré wearing striped ties, Billie Joe wearing a white armband with the words “Rage” on his right arm and a black wristband with the red heart grenade/strawberry logo on his left wrist, and Mike’
s trousers having a thin white stripe down each leg.
After the song’s first chorus, Billie Joe shouts out, “San Francisco!” to massive cheers; he’ll go on to yell the city’s name at some point during just about every song in the set to the same enthusiastic response. He also begins the audience interaction that will continue throughout the show. During the instrumental breaks he dashes from one side of the stage to the other, singing, “Hey — oh!” and then pointing at the crowd who dutifully sing, “Hey — oh!” right back at him. He also endeavors get the audience to do “the wave”, pointing to his right to get the crowds there to start the ritualistic raising of arms, continuing all around the ballpark. Before charging back into the final verse of the song, Billie Joe says, “I want you to sing so fucking loud that every redneck in America hears you tonight, all right?” to more delighted screams. At the song’s conclusion, he races back to center stage and on the final note strikes a crucifixion pose, standing straight, both arms thrust out to the sides. He holds the pose for a full 30 seconds.
“Welcome to the Green Day world tour 2005!” he finally shouts above the crowd noise. “And this is our homecoming show, bay-bee!” He dedicates the next song to “everybody that came here from the East Bay” — as the area across San Francisco Bay is referred to — and launches into ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’. This is the first of American Idiot’s song-suites, which runs just over nine minutes, one of the longest songs Green Day’s ever recorded. (‘Homecoming’, also on American Idiot, runs 10 seconds longer.) During the ‘City Of The Damned’ segment, Billie Joe gets the crowd to wave their arms from side to side, shouting, “Get those fists in the air! Get those hands up!” As the number segues into the ‘Dearly Beloved’ segment of the suite, Billie Joe cries, “Stand up! Stand up and be heard!” It’s a demand that goes right to the heart of American Idiot’s appeal and its multiple layers of meaning. Is it a call to arms or merely a request to enjoy yourself? It’s ultimately your decision; as Billie Joe told Guitar World in discussing the album, “I’d rather have people work out for themselves what it means to them.” At the end of the ‘Tales Of Another Broken Home’ segment, where on the album there’s a brief pause before the song thunders to its conclusion, in concert the moment seems to stretch into eternity. Billie Joe, standing still for a change, takes in the spectacle of a stadium packed with fans screaming at the top of their lungs, then backs up, slowly raising his arms to heighten the crowd’s screams, and dives back into the song as flash pots explode.
Afterwards, Billie Joe bows deeply, holds his right fist in the air, blows kisses, then gives a few “I’m not worthy” bows before saying, “You guys fucking rule!” as the crowd excitedly chants, “Green Day! Green Day!” “And this next song is a big fuck you to George W. Bush!” says Billie Joe, and the band launches into ‘Holiday’, with its bitter critique of “President Gasman” and threats of “bombs away” to those who have the audacity to be critical of the government. However, “This song isn’t anti-American!” Billie Joe shouts as he plays the song’s intro, “It’s anti-war!” At one point, he calls for “Lights out!” then, shining a flashlight into the audience, starts reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance, in the eerie glow of a red spotlight. The last line of the pledge, “With liberty and justice for all,” provides a defiant reminder of what real American values are.
“Hi! How you guys doing out there tonight? Welcome to the biggest hometown show that we’ve ever had — thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Billie Joe says at the song’s end. “We’ve been a band now — I should say, we’ve been a Bay Area band now — for the last 17 years,” he continues, going on to talk about the their first-ever show at Rod’s Hickory Pit in Vallejo. Among the packed audience down front is 17-year-old Robin Paterson, also from Vallejo. She’s a senior at John Swett High School in Crockett, where Billie Joe was once himself a student, until the number of his unexcused absences piled up too high. She’s been a Green Day fan ever since a friend told her about Dookie, the band’s major-label debut, released 11 years earlier in 1994. She is especially fond of International Superhits, Green Day’s greatest-hits collection. She wasn’t immediately won over by American Idiot on its release: “At first I didn’t like it that much because they sounded so different,” she says. “But after I heard it more and more, I liked how it sounded. And I really liked how they made it all one story, but each separate song had a different meaning behind it.”
Paterson and her friends got in line for the show around 4 pm, and managed to get close to the catwalk that juts out from the front of the stage. They’ve all brought T-shirts with “John Swett” on them, in the hopes Billie Joe will see them. Paterson throws hers on stage, but not knowing what it is, Billie Joe ignores it. Finally, he notices the group wearing the red and white T-shirts (the high school’s colours) and points to them. Other people in the crowd try to grab the shirts for themselves, but the Swett group is determined to get one to Billie Joe. Joe Pallotta and Rick Williams each throw shirts up, but Billie Joe can’t catch them. At last, during an instrumental break in ‘Hitchin’ A Ride’, Charles Wetmore makes a perfect toss and the shirt lands right on top of Billie Joe’s microphone stand. Billie Joe picks it up and displays it for the crowd. “This is the high school I went to in Crockett, California,” he says, amending that to, “One of the high schools I went to. Didn’t graduate though.” He pauses, then can’t resist adding, “And look at me, mom!” grinning broadly, his arms open wide in a gesture of triumph. From somewhere in the audience, Ollie Armstrong, Billie Joe’s mother, is surely smiling back. In her story about the concert for the John Swett Signal, Paterson quotes fellow student Tarah Rhine saying jokingly of the moment, “For once it made me proud to go to John Swett.”
There are more American Idiot songs during the show, including ‘Are We The Waiting’, which has the crowd waving their arms in the air again, then segues into the rollicking ‘St. Jimmy’, during which Billie Joe races from one side of the stage to the other, breathlessly spitting out the lyrics, as the crowd claps along in time. Then come the classics; the loping drum beat that kicks off ‘Longview’, from Dookie, which introduced the band to the rock mainstream. It’s an ironic slacker anthem from a band that’s rarely sunk into a “no motivation” slump like the protagonist in ‘Longview’. Perhaps one of the primary reasons Green Day has such a loyal and devoted fan base is that they spent much of their formative years touring as extensively and as frequently as possible, a regimen they’ve basically maintained ever since. To start one number, Billie Joe quickly plays a single chord, then stops. He does it again. And again. And again, provoking the crowd into screaming louder each time he does it. Finally, on the tenth time, he continues past the first chord, and the song turns out to be ‘Brain Stew’, a favourite track from Insomniac. It’s embellished by the copious use of flame pots; as the flames rhythmically shoot upward, the whole band begins jumping up and down in time with the song. Toward the end, Billie Joe picks up a large hose and sprays the crowd. Then, spotting a little boy in the audience, he brings him onstage and hands him the hose so he can spray the packed, sweaty masses in the mosh pit before him. And then there’s ‘Minority’, the first hit single from Warning, whose anti-authoritarian message would’ve fit quite nicely on American Idiot. Underscoring this message, Billie Joe will later shout during the show, “No matter who are the powers that be, do not give up your civil liberties! And speak out against the bullshit that the bastards throw in your face!” The call to maintain an active interest in current events is the same reason you’ll find booths for organisations like Amnesty International, Punkvoter, USA Harvest, and Greenpeace at Green Day shows.
There are a few surprises in the set list as well. Tré comes down front from behind his drum stool after ‘Longview’ to sing ‘All By Myself’, a hidden track on Dookie, which — as befits the gregarious drummer — is both goofy and a bit endearing. And after asking, “How many old-school Green Day fans are out there tonight?” Billie Joe presents a
real blast from the past with ‘2000 Light Years Away’, the lead-off track from Kerplunk!, their second album for Lookout Records, released over a decade ago, all the way back in 1992. Billie Joe then takes the time to introduce the band, saying of Mike, “a man that I’ve been standing next to since I was 10 years old. And the greatest bass player in the history of punk rock music!” Tré, says Billie Joe, is “a man I like to shower naked with” — Tré winks and nods at that — as well as “a man that is close childhood friends with Mr. Michael Jackson … and … the greatest drummer in the history of rock’n’roll!” “And my name,” Billie Joe concludes, “is George W. Bush.” The crowd boos and jeers in response, but Billie Joe gets the last laugh when, after a pause, he continues, “But you can call me asshole!”
There’s typically a lot of interaction with the audience on ‘Hitchin’ A Ride’, and this night is no different. First Billie Joe gets the crowd chanting, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” At one point, the music drops out completely, and Billie Joe points to various sections of the audience, encouraging each side to out-yell the other. Pleased with the results, he says, “Now that’s how you do it San Francisco, bay-bee!” Before the song starts up again, he teases the crowd further by fondling himself with his left hand, while moaning provocatively into the mic he’s holding in his right. Inevitably, as the moaning builds, he reaches into his trousers and finally shrieks, “Somebody fuck me!” as the crowd roars in delight. Having “recovered”, he grins and says, “I smell some of that Northern California marijuana out there! It’s going down good with that hot dog about now!” — a scent that he’d certainly recognise, given that the band’s name was inspired by pot smoking. “This is what I need,” he continues. “This is what I need. This is what it’s going to take. I need every single person in this park, in SBC Park in San Francisco, California, to scream, ‘One, two, one, two, three, four.’ Are you ready?” The crowd is. ‘Hitchin’ A Ride’ finally resumes, and as flames shoot up, the crowd howls even more.
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