Show Notes: Megs: "20 years has gone so fast. The first show I ever went to was my favorite band, and I sang my heart out from the rafters. All these years and records and one RRHoF induction later I'm still crazy about them but now I can sing my heart out from the front row with all the friends I've made following the same music."

New York Times: "The Nassau Coliseum must have been expecting a rough crowd for Green Day's concert on Sunday night. Ticket holders were frisked not just for weapons, recording devices and bottles; neck chains and binoculars were also turned away. But the audience that showed up was short on hard-core delinquents and longer on junior-high students and youngsters with parents in tow. For every spike-haired punk, there were 20 young girls prepared to sing along and squeal. Green Day plays speedy, bratty, self-mocking, tuneful punk-rock for pop fans in the millions. Unlike Nirvana, who smashed the pop-punk barrier a few years earlier, Green Day doesn't write enigmatic or especially innovative songs, just straightforward, revved-up three-chord rockers harking back to the Ramones and the Beatles. Nor is Green Day uneasy that mass audiences enjoy music that once prided itself on its rejection of (and by) mass success. Punk survived in clubs for two decades, but Green Day refits it for arenas. At Nassau Coliseum, floor seats were removed to create a giant mosh pit. Billie Joe, Green Day's lead singer, admonished larger people to take care of smaller ones; he brought one audience member onstage, gave him a beer and invited him to dive into the crowd. He also toyed with arena-rock ploys from sing-alongs to spraying water. During an encore, as the drummer Tre Cool played guitar and sang, Billie Joe took a drum solo, raising his sticks overhead like a self-congratulatory rocker. The audience cheered both the gesture and the joke. While popularity has made Green Day suspect among people who have cherished punk-rock since the 1970's, in concert the band is unstoppable. Green Day plays genre-perfect punk-rock to rival any of its predecessors. With Tre Cool's double-time drum salvos and Mike Dirnt's snappy bass lines, the band has a volcanic rhythm section. Billie Joe can carry a sustained tune above their furor, and he uses a spectrum of guitar strums, from pinpoint wrist action to full-arm power chords. The band varies its arrangements simply but effectively; an instrument stays silent for a verse or two, then blasts in. True to punk brevity, Green Day's entire set, including encores, lasted an hour. Green Day isn't strikingly original, but it deserves its commercial triumph. Even as punk-rock turns into arena entertainment, it retains a vestige of rebellion, promising no panaceas. And it's a lot more fun than most previous teen-age sensations."

Opening Band(s): The Riverdales

---

Verification Status:
Tour Statistics: Insomniac tour
Concert Reviews: 0