One Over X News

Rock'n'Roll: A Concert Review (Sort of)

Yesterday, April 16 was the long awaited Green Day concert In Orlando. My daughter Sarah is an avid fan, listens to their music almost to the exclusion of anything else. So of course when the Concert was announced, she wanted to go. I got tickets for us and one of her friends back in February.

I don't even know how long it has been since I have been to a rock concert, really. The last time I saw a major act live there was no such thing as a 'mosh pit'. When ever the band played a slow song everyone clicked a Bic lighter. That is how long it has been. Imagine me, a middle-aged man with graying temples (okay honestly most of my hair is turning white now). Imagine my surprise when everyone broke out their cell phones to illuminate the darkness with a eerie sort of bluish glow. Well, it's been a while; some things have obviously changed.

In my day I was quite the concert going rocker, though. When I was in high school not only did I play bass guitar for a small garage band that skyrocketed into obscurity but I also attended every major concert that came into the west central Ohio area. When I was in college in Indiana, I continued to be a rocker.

As you may suspect from reading One Over X, when I matriculated in Texas my musical tastes matured and diversified. Like Lee Ander's Johnston I even developed affection for Country Music but then I had some roots; it was my parent's favorite music and one of my cousins is Ricky Skaggs, a living legend in Blue Grass and Gospel.

Over the years there really hasn't been much in music that I did not learn to appreciate.

Despite the number of bands that I have seen in live performances over the years, I still remember every concert, all except the previous 'last' one. It has to be over 20 years ago. It was in Lakeland, FL, just before I enlisted in the Air Force. I won the tickets from a radio station. I had no idea who I would take to the concert with me, as I was not dating anyone. I asked the receptionist from the health club where I worked out, she turned me down - she had a boyfriend. The secretary at the advertising office where I worked hooked me up with one of her friends - a blind date. I even remember the girl's name and what she looked like. I remember that we had fun despite having almost nothing in common. I just don't remember the name of the band - that was how traumatic it was to endure their performance.

The band would have had to practice a lot even to just 'suck'.

What is even more strange than my not remember the name of the band, is that I never realized back then that it was going to be my last concert - well the last one until last night.

I have seen some big name bands when they weren't such big names and bands that hardly anyone remembers. I have seen old time rockers and the elite of the rock world when they were at their career zenith. I have attended concerts in arenas and small clubs. I have seen the gamut from AC/DC to ZZ Top and a whole lot in between. I have seen bands that I loved before seeing only to find their stage performance lackluster. I have seen bands that I didn't really like all that much before that turned me into a fan with the power of their performance and their ability to excite the crowd. I used to be really, really, really into music in a huge way. Despite the intervening years and all the responsibilities that I have acquired over that time, I suppose I still am into music.

If you have been keeping up with my blog, you know that I like Green Day. I listen to their music a lot and completely respect the band as musicians and their music as social and political commentary. Their music is straight-up, in-your-face Rock'n'Roll with a highly refined punk edge to it. You don't have to be cerebral to get the message of their music.

It is common for a band to be critiqued against another band or even compared to a number of bands whose obvious influences are evidenced in the resultant sound. I am sure that Green Day was heavily influenced by the punk movement of the late 70's and early 80's but also good ol' rock from the 50's, 60’s and 70’s. They even sample some blues and soul in their sound. The fusion has a character that for all intents and purposes is unique and establishes the band at the forefront of modern music. I expect that they will undoubtedly be cited in the future as musical influences for bands yet to come.

I went to the concert with preconceptions and based on my experiences in the past I expected some disappointment with the live performance. Maybe I didn't expect as great a disappointment as I have experienced with bands that rely heavily on studio gimmicks and mixing techniques to shape their sound; Green Day doesn't do a lot of that. Their sound is what it is and others probably should take note. Three sound, professional and competent musicians that, having won Grammy recognition for their latest offering, American Idiot, are arguably at the vanguard of rock music in 2005. They don't have to hide behind the gimmicks upon which so much of popular music is dependent. They perform with a couple of additional accompanying members that are also stellar performers - one of them seems to be a virtuoso of several instruments. Besides adding the texture of a rhythm guitar to compliment the lead riffs, the extras also contribute competently with horns, woodwinds, and keyboards - yes, and even an accordion.

Last night's concert was the second of the American Idiot tour that opened in Miami on Friday and continues to Tampa today and gradually migrating north. I'd have to read my daughter's tour shirt for the full itinerary but the tour is coast to coast. Anyone that wants more information, send me an email or visit the band's website http://www.greenday.com

The opening act for the tour is My Chemical Romance, a hard edge band with a punk flavor from New Jersey. Although the band displayed a good deal of energy and effectively warmed up the crowd, they suffered from the affliction that most opening acts must contend with. The sold-out crowd at the TD Waterhouse Center was there to see Green Day, so MCR started with a huge disadvantage. The audience was polite but, except for a smattering of MCR fans in the arena, the music was not given the chance that it probably deserved. I wonder how many headliners that are in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame have been underappreciated when they opened for other bands? I really don't know but I suspect the answer is 'a lot'.

Here is my opinion for what it is worth. The MCR sound was not as well presented as it might have been. They seemed to be striving for 'let's have everything louder than everything else', presenting a wall of sound that becomes noise that was only correlated to the thumping of the bass and the wail of a guitar, often drowning out the lyrics of their songs. As the American Idiot tour progresses look for MCR to refine their sound and tailor it to playing before even larger crowds than the 20,000+ in Orlando last night. They have and will continue to have the support of the headliner on the bill and that is important if not essential. As a bit of advice to Green Day fans, your heroes like MCR's music or they would not be touring together. Give their CD a listen prior to going to the concert. You will not be disappointed.

Green Day is a band that does not take themselves so seriously that they cannot have fun with their fans. They are seasoned professionals who know exactly what their audience wants and they deliver it with a punch, power and purpose. There was not a single moment of their 1 and 1/2 hour initial set that lagged or was boring. It was well paced and meticulously tuned to the expectations of the crowd. Billy Joe knows how to work 'a room' (as he referred to the TD Waterhouse Center at one point), engaging and inciting maximum participation, making the concert an event more than just another live show.

Curiously the show began even before it really began with a dancing ‘lush’ in a pink and white bunny suit. While Village People's standard YMCA blared out over the public address speakers the person in the bunny suit chugged long necks (probably filled with water) and parodied the dance that is associated with the song that presents the letters Y-M-C-A by the position of the hands.

Could any show that begins like that be anything other than just pure entertainment?

Then, the house lights dimmed and a wave of anticipation grew as the crowd chanted "Green Day! Green Day!" Over the PA blared the ominous opening chords of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (best known as the title theme for Stanley Kubrick's movie based on Arthur C. Clark's "2001: A Space Odyssey"). Mike Dirnt (ne: Michael Pritchard) settled in at his station and donned his bass guitar, Tre Cool ( ne: Frank Edwin Wright III) sat down at his drum kit, and picked up his sticks to wait for Billy Joe Armstrong to finish working the crowd like a symphony conductor with the crescendo of the music playing over the PA.

Immediately Green Day broke into the opening chords of "American Idiot", the title cut of their 'Diamond Award'-selling, Grammy winning album and the anthem and theme song for their current tour. The next few songs were also from the American Idiot CD: "Jesus of Suburbia" a song that is too long for a single, perhaps but the soul and essence of the American Idiot album's theme and "Holiday' their latest hit. So in the span of the first twenty minutes of the concert, the band had 1) warmed up the crowd, 2) played what they wanted to play from their latest release and 3) gave the audience what they expected, namely much of the best material off their most recent release. Anything can go after having done all that; and it did.

Green Day is in the enviable position of selecting their play list from an extensive catalogue of boni fide hits, a base of past material that, along with the monster status of "American Idiot" will serve as evidence to reserve a place of some honor in an exclusive wing of the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. The trouble is that they have an hour and a half to two hours to give the current crowd what they expect if not demand. With their most recent album having already produced three more than significant hit singles, they have the seasoned band's age-old dilemma of ‘what to play'. The conventional wisdom is to promote what is current first and what is best last, while filling in the middle with whatever the band likes to do. Green Day seemed to use this formula to great effect but since the heavily fan-based crowd knew almost everything that the band was playing there was no discernable lag in the energy transmitted from the stage out to the floor and into the seats that ring the arena. No song presented was unfamiliar to everyone. Every single song the crowd was singing along, something that master showman Billy Joe played up for optimal effect.

The present configuration of Green Day has been performing together for well over a decade. In Rock'n'Roll terms a decade is more than a lifetime for a band to endure. These guys must really enjoy being together and respect one another as friends and fellow artists to still be cranking out the tunes after almost sixteen years together. They execute as an entity, not as three very talented individuals. Long ago their individual egos have been well-fed and the freedom of that truth is manifest in their ability to transcend the usual undoing of a band: the constant upstaging of one another. Mike gets a bass solo; Tre gets a drum solo. Even so the many songs that serves as vehicles to permit the full display of their professional prowess on their instruments are part of the overall show and do not distract away from the overall cohesiveness of the band. There is little doubt left that these performers are a unit and that they have accomplished what they have done, as a single entity called Green Day. Theirs is a synergy that far exceeds the sum of the parts.

Green Day played the obligatory favorites: "Longview", "Brain Stew", and even "Panic Song" that showcases both Tre and Mike's speed and dexterity on their chosen instruments. One unexpected surprise (for me at least) was "King for a Day" complete with Bill Joe in crown and eventually even a monarch's robe. The set also included what I feel will be the bands follow up to "Holiday", giving the American Idiot album a 4th hit: "Wake Me up When September Ends". Probably the defining hit of the current album, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was part of the encore set along with a Billy Joe in solo performing one of the band's most successful hits, "Good Riddance” and the band’s more than competent cover of Queen’s “We are the Champions” that ended the show with an explosion of Green Day logo’d confetti.

One highlight of the show was when Billy Joe called out to the crowd to supply a drummer, bassist and a guitarist to take over the roles of each of the band members. Talk about maximizing audience participation and interest! Everyone in the crowd could identify immediately with the people that were selected. To some they were friends; to most everyone else they were just lucky enough to be there in the right place at the right moment for their change to be on stage performing before a packed house. They only had to keep a steady beat on the drums, play three notes on bass, and three chords on guitar. Yeah that may not seem like much but you do in front of that many people!

As a side note, the girl picked to play the guitar, Ember was someone that my daughter personally knows from high school. I am relatively certain that this is also yet another example of how there is never any coincidence in the Universe. My daughter had bragged incessantly perhaps that she had floor seats while Ember had to sit in the arena seats. In the modern day lexicon such an apparent coincidence that is not a coincidence is a God smack: an instant when you are certain that God has decided to intervene and divinely even the score in the game of life.

I heard all about it - how she got to hug Billy Joe and how she got a personal, autographed guitar given to her. I have to tell you though - having been a performer, albeit a small time performer - getting up in front of 20,000+ people and playing three chords on a guitar and carrying the beat along with two other people, strangers I might add, and doing it competently impressed the hell out of me. Ember deserved the guitar and maybe the hug even if Sarah, my daughter would beg to differ.

I am not sure if Green Day had any overall message in putting this audience participation thing into the set other than it was an ingenious way to get the audience's maximum attention. I personally think that it shows that almost anyone can do the basics of Rock'n'Roll: three notes and three chords set to a steady drum beat. It also drew a firm line of demarcation between what the band can do and what everyone else can do. What makes Green Day special is that they can go beyond the ordinary and expected, they can incite the audience, channel energy and simply put, write some pretty effective songs, ones that carry the band's heart soul and message to their fans. So what the picks from the audience did was basic but it was inspiring to the audience as well. In essence the band told the audience; hey the basics are the easy part. Even you could do this. It is a lot of hard work and practice but...the dream is there but you have to do that.

That is what I got from it whether anyone else did or not.

Green Day was well aware of the fact that there were people like me in the crowd, fathers of teenagers that are fans. I almost appreciated Billy Joe's acknowledgement of all of us: "Your parents that brought you here...." I have to explain why that struck me as a bit odd - in that he was speaking to parents as if we were a singularity, like a block of like minds.

I was there to protect my daughter for Jina's sake so that her mother didn't kill me if Sarah got hurt. I was also there because my daughter is that important to me. So her protection was a shared concern. I have been to rock concerts. I have not been to one in over twenty years and yes, they have grown a lot more violent. I am the voice of experience if not reason. I WOULD NOT LET MY SARAH GO TO A CONCERT BY HERSELF. Parents of teens take note. If you let your kids go to concerts PLEASE make sure you trust the crowd they are going with to look out for one another. Otherwise learn to enjoy the music and YOU go along.

It is not that I don't trust Sarah. She can handle herself in normal situations. She is young, though and lacks the expertise to navigate through the unexpected events in life. That is what teenagers in general lack – whether they know it. Teens get carried up in the emotions and energy of the instant and forget all about their personal safety. After all they are almost immortal, didn't you know? They are ten feet tall and bullet proof. The future to them is a nebulous thing way off in the distance not something that will creep up on them and surprise them when one day they wake up with gray hair and wrinkles but no idea where they came from.

That is what people die in ‘mosh’ pits, trampled under foot.

To the credit of both the bands and to the credit of the security people at the venue that were there monitoring the crowd, no one got hurt. However it is a very difficult thing for them to do. Generally, I believe that the audience wants to look out for one another. That is a very welcomed and positive thing. It has always been that way. Concert going people are almost a tribe within humanity. In the intervening years since the last time I went to a concert that has not changed at all. It is an essential and endearing element of a crowd mentality perhaps. People tend to look out for one another, even when the other is a stranger. I would rather think that it is also an even more personal thing: people just do not want to see anyone else get hurt.

There is a distinction between people and assholes, though. There were a few degenerate assholes (one with red highlights in his spiked hair) that wanted to be there for themselves alone. Dude! I totally get the concept of ‘moshing’; I really do and in a way that probably no one else my age ever would. It is a way of releasing pent-up anxiety and angst. Hey I did something like it in my day. And yes it was potentially lethal and made me feel very alive at the moment. Still I did not do it at a concert. I would have never risked anyone else for the sake of my own satisfaction. So, after all, I am different than you.

It is ironic perhaps that those who seem most inclined to body-slam in a ‘mosh pit' appear to be large enough to play high school football but are perhaps too apathetic to do so. And the rest that are in the vicinity are left to put up with there penchant for ramming into one another and often many others whether by accident or design. The reason I went to the concert with my daughter was so that she would be on the floor and have someone to protect her from such self-gratifying assholes.

To all the assholes: what YOU did at the concert presents the "I am me and to hell with anyone else or I am all about me and I am going to have fun in my own friggin' way" attitude. You may never read this - maybe you don’t even read - but I hope that you do see this. You are the reason that innocent people get hurt at concerts. You are the reason people cannot have fun going to concerts. You feel the need to express yourself to the exclusion of all reason or anyone else. That is why you are an ASSHOLE! That is why I grabbed you, guy with the red tipped hair, by the collar at several points and told you to 'chill', 'cool it' and 'cut the crap!' (I may have kicked you a few times – oops). You want to know why? I took one of your body slams. I also thrust you away and you almost fell on your ass a result. Well actually you did and maybe that was my fault, oops. My daughter is much lighter than me. You almost hit her on several occasions. Had you ever done so, I probably would be in jail today and you would be a member of the recently deceased.

It is unfortunate that the floor environment for a large segment of the show had to distract from the event or the music. Overall the show was simply amazing to me. Green Day performed at a level that exceeded what was captured on their most recent CD. They are better live, dare I saw even much better live than they are in the studio. How many bands can say that?

If you like anything that Green Day has ever done, which should include almost anyone, and you have the chance for score tickets to the American Idiot Tour, GO FOR IT! You will not be disappointed.

E

posted by Unknown @ 8:42 AM