I asked you to go to a Green Day concert, you said you'd never heard of them

My sister dragged me along to Green Day on Friday night (not that I have anything against them, I just haven't bought any of their albums since the mid nineties). It was fun. It was good value. The set was long. I have no complaints.

There was an Asian family sitting next to me, complete with little boy who couldn't have been more than seven years old. He was shorter than I am, even standing on his seat (which some usher woman stopped him from doing, boo). His uncoordinated, skinny little arms punched, waved and made hand gestures as enthusiastically as anyone else there, except maybe his Dad. When Billie Joe accused the crowd of sinning ("Having sex! Drinking alcohol! Smoking the devil's something") my little friend resolutely shook his head to reassure his folks that he was doing none of the above.

You expect a polished performance from a band that's been around since I was in high school, and Green Day didn't disappoint. They also did juvenile shit, which I love from a band. (I almost became a Blink 182 fan after I saw them at a festival and their finale was punctuated by the word "FUCK" lit up in flames above the stage.) Green Day had flames on stage, they drenched the (indoors) crowd with Super Soakers and hoses, they toilet-papered the front rows and they shot t-shirts into the back rows. My sister complained that they didn't set the drum kit on fire this time but it was only the first show on the tour.

There was crowd participation to the max, including a kid who was dragged up on stage to be healed, assisted stage dives, crowd sing-alongs and a couple of wailing chicks invited up on stage to ruin my favourite Green Day song, Longview. (They were so bad that my sister's man commented, "They could be on Australian Idol.")

 
Green Day sucked up to the Perth crowd no end (did I even hear an Adelaide joke at some stage?). As well as telling us they were starting their tour with the best city, they:

1) played AC DC riffs;
2) told us we have the best beaches in the world;
3) commented on what a "Green Week" it'd been; and
4) played "Last Night in Perth (on Earth)" in the acoustic encore.

They did general Aussie sucking up too, with chants of "Aussie Aussie Aussie", playing Johnny O'Keefe and telling us we're better than Americans (don't they know we're a carbon copy?).

Other larks? A totally Green Gay medley, punctuated by rainbow lights and horns, of King for a Day, Shout, Hey Jude, Satisfaction and Highway to Hell. The two hour set was finished off with thirty minutes of encore, including three acoustic tracks.