Show Notes: Simone Don: "After a FIFTY-MINUTE wait between bands, Green Day finally came on and opened with Nice Guys Finish Last. Crowd went nuts so I promptly moved from my spot close-ish to the stage, to further back where I wouldn't get kicked and could dance freely. The energy was up from the beginning (as always) and crowds was lapping it up. Castaway kept the energy up as it seems we forget how good a song it is until we get the chance to see it live and go nuts! The set continued on in high spirits with Billie Joe frequently insisting we 'hey-oh' after him. I was hoping that after 4 years he'd be over that, but apparently not. I have to say I groan when he starts up with that! Hitchin' A Ride brings out the bounciest dance moves in us all which is rather exhausting. The stretching out near the end of the song is a welcome rest. Once again we were subjected to 'hey-oh' and learning how to count to four for the big count in for the song's tremendous ending. While I needed the rest, I'd have rather just they played the song all the way through. More on that later. Request time came and to my DELIGHT some genius down the front got my telepathic message of Going To Pasalaqua and passed it on to Billie Joe. I had been wanting to hear this live since before I first saw them in '96. This was a real dream come true for me! I jumped and danced and leapt until I was out of breath. This in itself made my night as I love this song so much! Note: I'd like to especially NOT thank my friends Sam and Tracey in Australia who, after one show in '96, wrote a gay 'note' to give to the band to get them to play One Of My Lies at the next night's show, refused to include my Going To Pasalacqua request, so screw you both because you have never heard One Of My Lies live and I finally got my song, HA! Expecting the request portion of the show, I had some plans but I got lazy and didn't get around to making my 86 sign. I could see some champ down near the front flashing eight fingers, then six fingers repeatedly. He did his best, but it never turned up. Now as great as everything was, there was one major problem, in my opinion. It can get a little tedious when a band lets the song run for several minutes while they pump up the crowd, talk shit, get people onstage or whatever. Usually you come to expect these things, so you can deal with it, but I think Green Day went waaay overboard this time! They drew out FIVE songs with 'hey-oh' and other stuff and it was completely ANNOYING and BORING! I hate to say it because I look forward to Green Day shows so much. But dragging that many songs out really weakens the pace of the show. They did it on Hitchin' A Ride, the cover where they get people on stage to play the instuments, one other song (I forget which), then in the encore on Minority and Platypus right after each other! It really pushed me over the edge those last time. Much eyeball rolling was going on at that time, sorry! It would be tedious enough on it's own, but since it is just always 'hey-oh' and counting '1-2-1-2-3-4' it is even worse. It just bums me out a lot because the show was perfect in every other way. (Except Good Riddance, which I hate. That's never a good moment for me.) So while I DID just go on a bit of a tirade, I still stand by the show as being great. Green Day's shows are so energetic and fun that even with ongoing dull spots like they had, the show is still memorable. There is enough good stuff in any Green Day show to make up for the dud times. Perhaps they did me a favour. Perhaps my head would have exploded from overexcitement had they not done that? Ponder..."

Opening Band(s): The Living End