Live: Green Day at Vector Arena

Billie Joe Armstrong should get some sort of award – dude still looks exactly the same as he did a decade ago but sometime between then and now (I’m guessing it might have been around the time American Idiot came out) he’s turned into a monster of a frontman. Bono seriously needs to take note.

From the get-go of the first of two Green Day shows at Vector Arena, Armstrong had the crowd in the palm of his hand – he provoked from the audience a level of participation that I haven’t seen in a long time at a rock concert and it was wildly refreshing. From the mimicked I scream then you scream type thing to simply stepping back from the mic and letting the crowd roar out the lyrics, it was somewhat of a move away from the seriousness that sometimes plagues their new material. At one point early on he got a kid (named Joseph, who couldn’t be over eight) to join him on stage, for an impeccable timed sacrifice during new song East Jesus Nowhere and later in the set he got some pink-haired teen to take the role of frontwoman during Longview (it almost seemed rigged the way she enthusiastically took the stage but judging from her vocals it most definitely was not).

But dude knew what he was doing. He convinced the crowd that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world and mentioned that the first time they toured New Zealand was back in ’96 (no doubt it was about the same time a quarter of the fans in the crowd were being conceived) and dropped a few nice quips about how we like to drink, smoke and hate on Australians. Also, he managed to say New Zealand about 25 times, which was possibly some sort of record.

Every song sounded huge too. The group opened with tracks from their new album 21st Century Breakdown and stayed on that tip for awhile before pulling out the early highlight Holiday. The middle of their set was dedicated to their older fans as they played those three-chord bursts that became the stepping stones for where they are now. There was an abundance of cover songs too including Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, AC/DC’s Highway To Hell, The Isley Brothers Shout, The Rolling Stones Satisfaction and Paint It Back and The Beatles Hey Jude (which they played lying down). Also, it turns out Hey Jude actually sounds a lot like 21 Guns, so even though it was predictable, it made sense that they would play that next.

What else? Well there was plenty of fire (which I could easily feel the heat of from where I was sitting so god knows how Tre Cool felt), super soaker water things, and toilet paper bazooka guns that were used to shoot t-shirts into the audience. At one point and for no apparent reason, all the band members dressed up and the audience got to see Tre Cool wearing a bra. Also, Armstrong had on a police hat which he threw into the audience and from where I was standing I got to watch two guys struggle it out for the hat until they realised that they were going to have to paper, scissors, rock it out. The smaller dude won.

There were two encores – the first saw the band come back to play the raucous American Idiot before venturing into Jesus of Suburbia which was possibly the highlight of the night. And just as everyone thought everything was all said and done, Armstrong returned to stage as a lone figure standing amongst 12,000 fans to play acoustic versions of Wake Me Up When September Ends and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). It was an end that contrasted nicely to the boisterous performance that came before it and it concluded the two-and-a-half-hour show.

Photo courtesy of COUP DE MAIN. Used with permission.