Green Day is back. After several years on hiatus, the California punk band releases their new album, Revolution Radio TODAY. To celebrate the new collection of songs and gear up into full touring mode the band released a schedule of surprisingly small shows to take place during the week leading up to the album’s release. When a band as prolific as Green Day announces a string of club dates, including the House of Blues here in Boston, you can expect tickets to sell out in a minute or two. We’re not sure tickets even lasted a minute and we reached out just as quickly for our press credentials for the band’s much anticipated return to Boston. The band’s last treks through the area were in 2010 and 2009 at the Xfinity Center and TD Garden, respectively, in support of their album 21st Century Breakdown.
California duo Dog Party opened the show with an energetic set reminiscent of early Green Day and got the crowd ready for the main act of the night. Upon emerging from the smoke to loud cheers, Green Day launched into “Know Your Enemy” and didn’t slow down from there until closing out the set with a solo performance of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” While the show was clearly a launching point for a larger tour and was to give the band a chance to get back into the swing of things, there was nothing rough about the performance and Billie Joe and co. are clearly focused on this latest jaunt. There was no phoning it in, impressive after almost 30 years of Green Day (an accomplishment the singer announced from the stage.) The night felt like a celebration of the band’s career so far and a tease of what’s to come. They played only 4 songs from the new album (perhaps saving the rest for after release day) and the rest of their set read like a greatest hits collection spanning the aforementioned 30 years of music. Any casual or die hard Green Day fan likely heard most of what they were looking for this past Saturday.
The band invited several members of the audience on stage to help them with lyrics before ceremoniously throwing them into the crowd to surf back to their spots on the floor. At one point Billie Joe made his way to the side of the stage and noticed that there was an ASL interpreter signing the lyrics to a hearing impaired crowd member and brought her center stage to sign for the entire room. You could tell it was hard for her to contain her excitement and do her job at the same time, but the crowd member was probably understanding if she missed any words as the interpreter rocked out with one of her favorite bands.
These were just some of many special moments during the show. A particularly moving singalong to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” led to singer, Billie Joe, proclaiming, “Oh man, I’m just happy to be alive!” You could tell he meant it, as there was never a moment where the smiles left the face of himself, bassist Mike Dirnt or drummer Tre Cool (who is “still sexy” after all these years according to BJ.) If the tour comes back through town later on, make sure to catch it, as the band is back in peak form with this latest release and string of performances.
Revolution Radio is available now through all major music services. Grab some headphones, your old Dookie shirt, and get ready for a little head banging on the commute to work or school. Our full gallery of photos is below.
Listen here: Amazon, iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify
