Green Day - American Idiot (2004)Say what you want about Green Day, but here is what I have to say.
Green Day came to town on the American Idiot Tour during my sophomore year of college, over a year after the album had come out. After hearing that Jimmy Eat World would be opening, it was my mission to get into this very expensive arena show. I had batted back and forth on if I was willing to pay for it, but by the time I made my decision, it was sold out. I can't remember the last time I got so worked up about seeing a show, but something told me I HAD to be there. I pulled as many favors as I could but no one had a ticket to spare.
At the time I was doing promotions for The Blaze and one Saturday morning, ESPN decided to be on campus to broadcast one of our football games. Everyone was fairly worked up about it, so much so that they started the pre-game tailgate around 7AM in Lot 59. Since this would be on national television and since I had no shame, myself and my sports-fanatic promo staffer met at 5AM, taped our Blaze banner to two large poles and brought it to the crowd to hopefully be caught on camera. We sat out there for several hours, again, starting at 5AM. As far as I know we weren't on TV, but we damn well tried.
We went back to the station and had a quick promo booth that lead into the afternoon as people walked to the stadium, and we were probably zombies by the end of it. We packed everything up and I fully anticipated an epic naptime to follow. I'm on my way home and I get a text from our music director Matt, who I shared an office with and my overwhelming need for these Green Day tickets, who said he heard that The Edge 103.9 was giving away tickets to the show at some Verizon store in Chandler. Sweaty and exhausted, I didn't even think twice and drove down there.
I get there and there are several people in line to try to win. I was shocked. They did it in several rounds, with three people in each round answering trivia questions on Green Day. I knew a lot about the band because of my brother, who often quizzed me as kids about the various bands he raised me on, but not nearly what these people knew. I threw my name into the hat and was told I'd be up in few rounds. I quickly ran to my car and grabbed a pen and my phone and called my brother and asked, "dude, tell me everything you know about Green Day." He spewed out a huge list of fun facts, some I knew but many I didn't, and I studied up between rounds. When it came to my round, I nailed the most correct questions and won the tickets. SCORE! The folks then told me that myself and the other ticket winners could compete for "soundcheck passes" the night of the show, so I stuck around and went up against some pretty diehard fans.
This fire round was the staff telling a fact about one of the members of the band and we had to guess which one they were talking about (ie-which member started their own record label, etc) With three people up and three band members, one of us was bound to be right. I did however remember getting my questions right by just knowing the answer at first. It came down to the last question and myself and another girl were tied with most answers right. The last question was "which member of Green Day worked at his college radio station?" The irony in that was amazing but I didn't know the answer, but I just took a guess and said "Tre Cool?" and was right. I lost my mind and called my brother, telling him the 2nd ticket was his. All things considered : it being last minute, quick cramming and exhaustion, this was a huge feat. It's also one of the few times I accidentally cussed in front of my dad when i called to tell him the story (I was just so excited!)
The night of the show we got there around 3:30 and met up with about 20 other people to watch the soundcheck from the stands in a huge arena. Billie Joe walks out and says "hey there, this sound alright?!" and we nervously "WOOOOOOO!" It was completely surreal. Sadly we didn't get to meet the band and only got pre-signed autographed pictures, but we did get to go to a room backstage where there was a ton of free food and m&ms and got a goodie bag with a free t-shirt and Verizon promotional materials. Fun! The concert itself was amazing, two hours and some pretty ridiculous seats. Jimmy Eat World was amazing too, although limited to a half hour set. All and all it's one of my favorite memories of all time.
Oddly enough, just a few months ago, I saw MySpace was running a contest to see Green Day at Webster Hall, a 600 or so capacity venue in NYC. I casually entered my name and won, making that two Green Day shows I've seen for free. They played "In the Library", my favorite song, and played just like how I imagined they would have when they first started, an intimacy I was too young to get to experience after their blow out hit Dookie. I doubt I'll be able to see them in any other way again.
The amazing part about the American Idiot Tour experience was getting to see it with my brother. As was a theme in our first month of revisiting records, so much of my influence came from him and I was thrilled to get to share that time with him. I'll often say that I wasn't really raised on music like a lot of my die-hard friends were. I didn't start on Pink Floyd, I started on Green Day, and I'll never ever forget that. My only regret is that I wasn't born early enough to see their rise. Despite all the glitz and hype they exist in today, they were a band I could champion early on, no matter what level. The music was just that good. And despite how a lot of people feel about this record, it was a fairly ingenious effort. The "rock opera" had been done, but not like this. It told an amazing story and proved that Green Day can get away with anything and do it well. The songs were really strong (although sometimes, also long) and even the 'hits' that emerged were great reflections of the band's progress and sustainability.
This band has been around longer than most current college students have been alive. What has your band done?
Also, this is pretty amazing. Green Day playing my favorite song circa 1990. Thanks, internet!
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