Call Me Pathetic, Call Me What You Will

Concert Review
Green Day - 11.8.04 - UIC Pavilion
@@@@1/2

Back in 1995, when I saw Green Day for the first time, I felt old -- I was 27 and most of the crowd was in high school. Now I'm 9 years older, so are the guys in Green Day, but the majority of fans still seemed to be of high school age. If I was more insecure, my awareness of being seen as "that old dork by himself" might keep me from attending shows like this. But that would be a shame, because Green Day still is a really great band and they put on a terrific show at the UIC Pavilion last night.

Going in, I thought they would "perform" their excellent "American Idiot" concept album straight through as they had earlier in the tour. But after the initial 4-5 "AI" songs, they attacked some of their greatest hits like Longview, Basket Case, Brain Stew and Minority. For purity's sake, I think I would've liked the full "American Idiot" treatment, but everything they played sounded great and Billie Joe Armstrong is a tremendous frontman, showman, songwriter and guitarist who probably doesn't get his due. The crowd seem to really know & enjoy the two "latter day Green Day-esque" bands that opened the show -- Sugarcult and New Found Glory -- but other than their names, I was unaware going in and unimpressed coming out. But the lameness of these "posers" only further revealed to me what a truly top tier band Green Day is. And while I may admittedly be an old dork, if they keep rocking, so will I.