Green Day Seizes Classic Rock Mantle in Austin: Review and Photos

Is Green Day a traditional rock band?

The Bay Area pop-punk stalwarts have been caught in pop-culture purgatory for the previous decade. They nonetheless have sufficient cachet to attain Top 10 albums (with 2016’s Revolution Radio even debuting at No. 1 in the U.S.), however their days of racking up multiplatinum LPs and Hot 100 hits are lengthy behind them. Ask an off-the-cuff fan what Green Day has been as much as for the previous 15 years, and you will in all probability get a imprecise reference to 2004’s American Idiot, which is now sufficiently old to purchase cigarettes, or presumably its bloated 2009 sequel, twenty first Century Breakdown.

Green Day not solely got here to phrases with their legacy-act standing however embraced it with sweaty arms pointed skyward throughout their efficiency at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas on Oct. 21, kicking off a star-studded Formula One race weekend. The remaining present of the band’s two-year globe-trotting marketing campaign — first, the Hella Mega stadium jaunt that includes Fall Out Boy and Weezer, capped by a victory lap of headlining competition slots — featured no songs newer than 2009; 2020’s Father of All Motherfuckers, which they’d ostensibly be selling on this tour cycle, obtained nary a point out.

That suited the roughly 100,000 followers in attendance simply high quality. They have been a lot happier to listen to Green Day plow via disaffected slacker anthems like “Longview” and “Basket Case” off 1994’s star-making, diamond-selling Dookie and revel in the righteous rage and unadulterated angst of political punk juggernauts like “American Idiot,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “St. Jimmy” and “Know Your Enemy.”

Those will not be straightforward emotions to bottle and uncork on command each night time for greater than a quarter-century, however Green Day pulled it off with aplomb throughout their breathless, hour-and-45-minute Austin set. Don’t let Billie Joe Armstrong’s graying hair idiot you: His nasally, faux-British sneer and husky, troop-marshaling bellow nonetheless pack all of the tuneful ferocity of yesteryear, whereas bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool nonetheless kick up a exact, whiplash-inducing wallop that is equally indebted to the Ramones and the Who. Augmented by touring guitarists Jason White and Kevin Preston and keyboardist and saxophonist Jason Freese, Green Day delivered a multilayered stadium-rock spectacle that also rocked with the nervy, youthful abandon of their 924 Gilman St. days.

Time has not dulled Armstrong’s irreverent humorousness or prickly anti-authoritarian streak both. “This is our last show for a long time. We saved our best for the best state in the United States: Texas!” he introduced early in the night time. “I’m not just gonna kiss your ass, but Texas is the greatest state in the whole damn world.” He waited for a beat for the applause to subside, and then, “Just ask Ted Cruz.”

Armstrong is each self-aware and self-deprecating sufficient to grasp the irony of pillorying Republican politicians and mocking “the hype machine, the pageantry” of a gazillion-dollar sporting occasion whilst Green Day performs in the middle of the blood-red state and serves as a cog in the mentioned hype machine. (His tongue was so firmly rooted in his cheek throughout his late-set exhortation to “get all these Californians out of this goddamn city” that you just could not even fault him for the shameless pandering.) He can be conscious that the band’s Bush-era protest anthems and wastoid methamphetamine dirges lack the urgency that they had upon launch. But for most of the fresh-faced followers smushed towards the barricade, these songs should still be actively soundtracking their private and political awakenings. Armstrong, now 50, was completely happy to play grasp of ceremonies — sprinting and leaping throughout the stage, illuminating the group with a handheld highlight throughout “Holiday” and donning a fan’s cowboy hat throughout a Texas-sized rendition of “St. Jimmy” — and steward his band’s legacy for the following era of disenchanted outcasts.

It wasn’t all that deep, although. Green Day additionally reminded listeners simply how rattling enjoyable their songs are, particularly the extra minor entries in their catalog, that are unencumbered by political sermonizing or theatrical grandstanding. Armstrong indulged in an prolonged harmonica solo on “Minority,” the rootsy, Kinks-y single off 2000’s underrated Warning, delivered a bug-eyed and slurred rendition of the caustic Insomniac single “Brain Stew” and turned Nimrod‘s “King for a Day” right into a ska-glam revue, segueing as regular into a canopy of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” Even a perfunctory cowl of Kiss’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” succeeded due to a spirited crowd singalong and a searing guitar solo from Armstrong.

If Green Day occupies a business grey space these days, in addition they proved at this present that they are nonetheless the stadium-rock band to beat in 2022. They’re one of many few rock acts — together with fellow ’90s alt-rock heroes Foo Fighters — with a large enough treasure chest of hits to pack such large venues and nonetheless limber sufficient to evoke their hit-making glory days with out being graded on the AARP-discount curve. The Hot Topic brigade might balk, however 30 years into their profession, Green Day matches all the factors for a traditional rock band — and they could simply be the easiest of the bunch.

Green Day, Circuit of the Americas, Austin, 10/21/22
1. “American Idiot”
2. “Holiday”
3. “Know Your Enemy”
4. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
5. “Longview”
6. “Welcome to Paradise”
7. “Hitchin’ a Ride” (Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” tease)
8. “Rock and Roll All Nite” (Kiss cowl)
9. “Brain Stew”
10. “St. Jimmy”
11. “When I Come Around”
12. “21 Guns”
13. “Minority”
14. “Knowledge” (Operation Ivy cowl)
15. “Basket Case”
16. “King for a Day”
17. “Shout” (Isley Brothers cowl)
18. “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
19. “Jesus of Suburbia”
20. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”