On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of going and seeing Green Day play at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Growing up, I had a list of 3 bands that I had always wanted to see perform. Nirvana (obviously not going to happen), Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Green Day. Getting tickets to see Green Day crossed one band off that list, and fulfilled my dream. I brought Mat with me, purely because he has only ever been to one concert before and I thought he might enjoy another one. On the way to the concert, it became apparent that I’d underestimated his knowledge of the band when he confessed to only knowing one of their songs. He was then subjected to a 15min barrage of karaoke in order to jog his memory (I’d managed to screw up my ipod and was missing 90% of their albums from it). Thankfully, he managed to recognise more of their songs, and became a bit more excited about seeing them.

I thought we would be running late since we only left the coast at 6pm and the concert started at 7.30. It takes about an hour to reach Brisbane, and normally on the way to the Entertainment Centre we would experience a 15 – 20min period of stoppage on the highway, caught in the midst of a traffic jam as everyone made their way to the concert. Amazingly, this wasn’t the case for Green Day, and we arrived at just after 7pm. We made our way inside, and settled down in the bar for some pre-show drinks. At 7.30 we took our seats.

With Mat, I know enough about him to know never to buy him general standing tickets. He hates being crowded, and being shoved by thousands of people is definitely not something he would desire. Seating is therefore perfect for him, and I was lucky enough to secure us amazing front row seats for Foo Fighters, the first (and until now, the only) concert he had ever been to. Thus he had high expectations for Green Day – front row seats just far back enough from the stage to be able to see everything. Originally I thought this was the case, but when we sat down to watch the support band, Jet, we discovered the stage was a LOT closer to our seats than we had anticipated. In fact, the stage was directly in front of us. To make it even worse, there were sound technicians on the side of the stage, blocking our view of the band. For Jet’s entire performance, I saw the lead singer maybe twice, when he jumped up, and when he walked out to the crowd a little bit. Needless to say, I was pretty devastated.

Can you see Jet? No, neither could we

After they finished, we were approached by a member of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre staff. He said the stage had been set up a lot further forward than anticipated, and they apologised for our lack of a view. They offered to reposition us in the stadium to different seats to have a view, but unfortunately the only seats available were at the back of the stadium on the floor. We would still be able to see over everyone’s heads, and therefore see the performance, but we wouldn’t be as close as our current seats. In the end, Mat and I decided to take him up on the offer, purely because if we stayed where we were we wouldn’t see anything at all. We sat in the new seats, then waited for Green Day to take the stage.

The new seats were further away, but at least we could see what was going on

When they eventually came out, they played their first song hard and with a lot of energy. They yelled the words Brisbane, and Australia a lot, each time getting a massive cheer from the crowd. Finally, in a down moment during the song, Billie Joe (lead singer) made his way to the side of the stage, pointed at the people sitting down in the stands, and yelled,

Stand the fuck up! This is a rock concert, not a fucking tea party! Get the fuck up!

That went down as one of my all time quotes for a concert. In that one simple statement he really set the tone for the night. I won’t go into details of songs; they played 2.5 hours worth of music. There’s just no way I could tell you each song they played and keep this blog post interesting. I can tell you they put 110% effort into every single thing they did. Every song they were dancing madly, and playing loudly. Billie Joe did a section where he performed covers of other songs, most notably, Highway to Hell by AC/DC. It felt almost unfair when he cut the song off early, and went into something else.

There were two standout items from that concert that I will take away with me forever. The special effects, and the audience partipation.

During the concert they had fireworks raining down on the stage. They had loud crackers that scared the shit out of us. They had cannons blasting out thousands and thousands of pieces of paper, each with the band’s name on it. They had flames firing up on each side of the drummer (I could feel the heat from the back of the room, I can’t imagine how he must’ve felt). Their background was city building stands which also transformed into background displays for their music. I’ve never seen flames and fireworks during a performance before, so this was pretty amazing for me.

The audience participation level was incredible. Past concerts I’ve seen a lead singer occasionally run into the crowd, but that was about it. Billie Joe really took it to new heights, and I can’t see any other band in the future ever surpassing it. He ran into the crowd and up into the stands, picked a kid from the crowd and brought him into the aisle. He then placed his guitar over the kids head (but still around his own shoulders, he was standing directly behind the kid) then proceeded to play the song using the kids hand to strum. After about 30 seconds or so, he took the guitar off again, hugged the kid then ran back to the stage. I believe that have been one of the best nights of that kid’s life – I know it would be for me if I was in his position.

But Billie Joe didn’t stop there. He also brought people up onto the stage. Two were just standing up singing along with him for a few seconds, but then “Welcome to Paradise” came on. After searching to see who knew the words, he got a woman on stage. He then handed her the mic, and invited her to sing the song while he just hung about in the background. Again, what an experience for that person. It would have definitely made her night. Her singing sucked, but she really worked the stage. She went and visited each of the band members, singing along with them for a bit, before getting flustered and forgetting part of a verse. She recovered, and finished that particular section. Billie Joe then thanked her, and looked for a guy this time. A man was brought up on stage, and same deal. He was handed the mic and left to his own devices. He rocked it HARD! He got the crowd jumping, and ran around the stage playing with the band members. At one point you could see Billie Joe laughing and cheering the guy on. At the end of the song, he took the mic back then made the guy stage dive at the end of the stage. Brilliant.

Even when Billie Joe wasn’t pulling people on stage, he wasn’t forgetting about the audience either. Between songs, they amped the crowd up by pointing to particular sections, asking them to yell. Or Billie Joe sung a tune, and made the audience replicate it. He really got us all involved, and didn’t let anyone sit down for the entire duration of the concert (if you tried, he would point at you and yell “get up” until you stood up). At the end of the night my legs were exhausted from dancing, and I knew I had to get up in 5 hours to catch a plane to Sydney, but I didn’t regret one minute of it.

It’s funny how at the end of each concert I’ve been to I always walk out thinking it was the best concert I’ve ever been to. But really, I can’t see anyone surpassing this (though my first big concert, Foo Fighters in 2005, will always hold a special place in my heart). Billie Joe was right. On Tuesday night, I went to a rock concert, and not a fucking tea party.