Dec
8
Mon • 1997
Set 1:
-
#5 The Grouch
-
#6 Longview
-
#7 Knowledge
Encore:
Show Notes
Incomplete setlist
Rick Savage: "As with the show in LA, Whip It was played right before Green Day came on. Billie, Mike, and Tre ran onto the stage. Everyone went wild. Then with no intro, Billie starts with, 'Here we go again,' then Mike and Tre join in. After like the third song, some prick in the audience started throwing shit at Mike. Mike warned him by stating, 'If you throw anything else, I'm going to beat your fucking ass.' Well, after the next song, Mike jumped into the crowd to do just that, beat that kid's ass. Guess who it was? It was Mark Hoppus from the band Blink-182. (What a dick!) Anyway, they played just about everything I could have asked for (save for Eye Of The Tiger). They even brought a kid up on stage to play Knowledge with them. Billie is hilarious. He made fun of Bush, Matchbox 20, and especially Marilyn Manson. He even sang The Beautiful People over the bass line of Longview. At the end of the show, as always, Mike and Tre trashed the stage while Billie played around with his guitar playing some nasty-ass chords. Then he closed with Good Riddance. I swear to God it brought tears to my eyes. It was the best show I ever seen."
Green Day mixes gross with fun
By KARLA PETERSON
Copley News Service
SAN DIEGO — Heads up, ladies and gentlemen. Billie Joe Armstrong has an announcement to make.
“I’ve got a potty mouth!” Green Day’s lead singer and guitarist announced to the SOMA crowd Monday night. “Just like Marilyn Manson!”
Well, not exactly like Marilyn Manson. Unlike the bondage-clad shock rocker, Armstrong indulges in toilet-bowl linguistics for the sheer gross-out fun of it. And like the little brother you never had (or wished you never had), Armstrong’s adolescent anarchy is both highly entertaining and extremely irritating.
Armstrong is a good-news/bad-news package deal, and during Monday’s sold-out show, Green Day’s blend of punky high spirits and bad-boy indulgence made for an evening that ran out of inspiration before the band ran out of time. There was plenty of bratty entertainment to be had, but not quite enough of it to go around.
But it was great fun while it lasted. Following a sporadically tuneful set from New York City’s D-Generation (whose retro-punk sound isn't nearly as dangerous as the band thinks it is), Green Day powered through a 90-minute show that started with a pop-bang and ended with a feedback-heavy belch. In between, Armstrong and friends... [article cuts off] ...cartoon energy behind tunes that scribbled out a teen-angst SOS in crayon-bright colors.
Sticking mostly to material from the new LP “Nimrod” and 1994’s mega-selling “Dookie,” Armstrong and the band turned in sharp versions of old favorites (the crowd-pleasing “Welcome to Paradise”) and promising newcomers (the beefy “Hitchin’ a Ride” and the snot-nosed “Nice Guys Finish Last”) while still leaving plenty of time for those wacky Green Day antics.
Ping-ponging about the stage like the Road Runner on a serious java jag, Armstrong took time out from playing to bond with the audience (“Who let off the stink bomb?”), dispense etiquette advice (“Ease up man,” he told a particularly fractious audience member, “we’re not here to fight”) and take musical swipes at Third Eye Blind, Blur and Marilyn Manson.
The latter jab was pretty inspired, as a snippet of Manson’s “The Beautiful People” morphed into a whomping version of “Longview.” But other side trips weren’t nearly as rewarding.
Like a lot of bright, talented kids, Armstrong is easily distracted, and some of his tangents were more enjoyable than others. While it was easy to appreciate Armstrong’s assorted mosh-pit warnings (particularly the one that told the pit boys to leave the pit girls alone), he could sound almost as cranky as the guy from “The Grouch.” And while it was a nice touch to invite an audience member on stage for an impromptu guitar solo, asking the fans to sacrifice their shirts just so Armstrong could try them all on was an exercise in pointless indulgence.
Speaking of pointless indulgence, if the obligatory equipment-wrecking finale seemed old when Nirvana was doing it, it seems positively creaky now. And when the band followed the melee with the standard endless-feedback schtick, Green Day seemed about as anarchic as Motorhead. It’s the kind of move Armstrong should be making fun of, and it was disappointing to see a young band resorting to such ancient rock tricks.
Rick Savage: "As with the show in LA, Whip It was played right before Green Day came on. Billie, Mike, and Tre ran onto the stage. Everyone went wild. Then with no intro, Billie starts with, 'Here we go again,' then Mike and Tre join in. After like the third song, some prick in the audience started throwing shit at Mike. Mike warned him by stating, 'If you throw anything else, I'm going to beat your fucking ass.' Well, after the next song, Mike jumped into the crowd to do just that, beat that kid's ass. Guess who it was? It was Mark Hoppus from the band Blink-182. (What a dick!) Anyway, they played just about everything I could have asked for (save for Eye Of The Tiger). They even brought a kid up on stage to play Knowledge with them. Billie is hilarious. He made fun of Bush, Matchbox 20, and especially Marilyn Manson. He even sang The Beautiful People over the bass line of Longview. At the end of the show, as always, Mike and Tre trashed the stage while Billie played around with his guitar playing some nasty-ass chords. Then he closed with Good Riddance. I swear to God it brought tears to my eyes. It was the best show I ever seen."
Green Day mixes gross with fun
By KARLA PETERSON
Copley News Service
SAN DIEGO — Heads up, ladies and gentlemen. Billie Joe Armstrong has an announcement to make.
“I’ve got a potty mouth!” Green Day’s lead singer and guitarist announced to the SOMA crowd Monday night. “Just like Marilyn Manson!”
Well, not exactly like Marilyn Manson. Unlike the bondage-clad shock rocker, Armstrong indulges in toilet-bowl linguistics for the sheer gross-out fun of it. And like the little brother you never had (or wished you never had), Armstrong’s adolescent anarchy is both highly entertaining and extremely irritating.
Armstrong is a good-news/bad-news package deal, and during Monday’s sold-out show, Green Day’s blend of punky high spirits and bad-boy indulgence made for an evening that ran out of inspiration before the band ran out of time. There was plenty of bratty entertainment to be had, but not quite enough of it to go around.
But it was great fun while it lasted. Following a sporadically tuneful set from New York City’s D-Generation (whose retro-punk sound isn't nearly as dangerous as the band thinks it is), Green Day powered through a 90-minute show that started with a pop-bang and ended with a feedback-heavy belch. In between, Armstrong and friends... [article cuts off] ...cartoon energy behind tunes that scribbled out a teen-angst SOS in crayon-bright colors.
Sticking mostly to material from the new LP “Nimrod” and 1994’s mega-selling “Dookie,” Armstrong and the band turned in sharp versions of old favorites (the crowd-pleasing “Welcome to Paradise”) and promising newcomers (the beefy “Hitchin’ a Ride” and the snot-nosed “Nice Guys Finish Last”) while still leaving plenty of time for those wacky Green Day antics.
Ping-ponging about the stage like the Road Runner on a serious java jag, Armstrong took time out from playing to bond with the audience (“Who let off the stink bomb?”), dispense etiquette advice (“Ease up man,” he told a particularly fractious audience member, “we’re not here to fight”) and take musical swipes at Third Eye Blind, Blur and Marilyn Manson.
The latter jab was pretty inspired, as a snippet of Manson’s “The Beautiful People” morphed into a whomping version of “Longview.” But other side trips weren’t nearly as rewarding.
Like a lot of bright, talented kids, Armstrong is easily distracted, and some of his tangents were more enjoyable than others. While it was easy to appreciate Armstrong’s assorted mosh-pit warnings (particularly the one that told the pit boys to leave the pit girls alone), he could sound almost as cranky as the guy from “The Grouch.” And while it was a nice touch to invite an audience member on stage for an impromptu guitar solo, asking the fans to sacrifice their shirts just so Armstrong could try them all on was an exercise in pointless indulgence.
Speaking of pointless indulgence, if the obligatory equipment-wrecking finale seemed old when Nirvana was doing it, it seems positively creaky now. And when the band followed the melee with the standard endless-feedback schtick, Green Day seemed about as anarchic as Motorhead. It’s the kind of move Armstrong should be making fun of, and it was disappointing to see a young band resorting to such ancient rock tricks.