"My name’s George W. Bush…but my friends call me @$$hole…"

This is how Billy Joe Armstrong introduced himself after naming all of the other band members of Green Day.

It was an awesome, energetic show. I have never seen Green Day before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. And I have to say, that I never really like much of their music before the “American Idiot” album. If not for that album, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the show.

Before the show, I was wondering how Green Day gets away with being called “punk” because this album is *clearly* not very punk. But the stage show answered all of these questions. They took bits and pieces from other succesful rock concerts, and made them their own. The drummer (Tre Cool, or Frank Edwin Wright III) must have tossed about 100 sticks into the crowd (how I didn’t get one is still a mystery to me…although I was right next to the guy that caught Billy Joe’s tie). I was somewhat amused by the number of U2-inspired elements of the stage show, but there was also the (James Brown inspired) robe draped over an exhausted Billy Joe, a crazy puppet dancing around, a man in a bunny suit, saxophone, accordion, trombone, trumpet, pyro-technics, flames, …

I was down on the floor, and quite thankful to be a tall man. I can’t imagine being in the madness of that mosh pit, and only being 5′ tall. I don’t know what some of those people were thinking. I’m also not sure what anyone who weighs more than 175 lbs is thinking when they want to crowd surf…lots of big men fell down to the ground. Speaking of people in the crowd, I almost punch one guy in the head because he was just charging into people elbows first throughout the whole show. Finally someone lifted him up and we crowd surfed his @$$ outta there.

Back to the show. Billy Joe knows how to work the crowd. Wow…he put on a clinic…It was beautiful. The music was full of energy, the crowd was singing at full volume for almost every song. At one point they brought three random people onto the stage. One to play bass, one for drums, and one on guitar. Billy Joe liked the guitar player so much that he let him keep the guitar! I’d love to see this show again sometime from a little higher up to take in everything that’s going on. If you get the chance, check them out!