green day & jew!

Seriously? Two words: LOVE IT! It's funny, with each concert I go to, I learn more and more what I'm looking for in watching live performances.

The first concert I went to this summer: Keane-Killers. That was a good concert because I love both bands and all the songs they sing. And I mean there was something nice about seeing them live -- the Keane lead singer has an absolutely beautiful voice, Brandon Flowers (who unfortunately, now married) and the Killers sound a lot "raw"-er live. But truthfully? I could happily listen to the Keane CD day after day and re-realize the beauty of his voice. And the Killers, actually, I prefer their music videos more so than anything else. You can totally see their Vegas roots in their videos, especially "Mr. Brightside." In any case, I had great "seats" (the pit in front of the stage, like 3 people away from the stage), great company, and it was great music.

But musical performance? Nothing compared to that of Modest Mouse. It was at this concert where I was really reminded the impressiveness of great MUSICIANS. Now the Modest Mouse folks can really rock the stage -- no joke. As I've described in my previous post, they absolutely put on a fantastic show. With so many musical components, so many musical elements, it really is an incredible experience watching them perform.

This all leads me to my latest concert. Billie Joe seriously has the BEST stage presence of any of the performers I've ever seen. He grabs the crowd's allegiance so early on and keeps it throughout the night. TWO HOURS I got to see them perform -- TWO HOURS! He used "call-and-answer" techniques to keep the crowd involved in the performance ("waaaaaay-oh!"), he talked about his songs before performing them ("this is a big F-U to all the politicians out there, a little song called Holiday"), he "created" a band (brought 3 members of the audience on-stage to perform on GREEN DAY's instruments -- a frat boy on the drums, some teenager on the bass, and a 13 year-old on his guitar! gave the 13 year-old a hard time --"have you ever been laid? well you will after tonight!"--"where you from?" "virginia" "oh, i'm sorry to hear that... virginia is for looooooovers"-- then gave the kid his guitar!!), he sprayed water at the crowd through a water gun attached to a hose (and invited an 8 year old kid to assist him), he was just all out awesome! They performed all the big ones off of American Idiot, of course, and some of the great oldies: "Basketcase," "She," "Longview," and at the very end -- "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." In any case, that was an AMAZING concert.

Oh, I feel like I should make a mention of Jimmy Eat World. They were pretty awesome but it's tough being an opener for Green Day. They performed two of my favorite songs by them -- "Praise Chorus" and "Sweetness" -- so I was pretty happy.

In any case, it's been a great summer of concerts. (Yeah all THREE, hahaha!) Especially since I came out of each concert feeling like it was the BEST concert I had ever seen until then. And seriously, this time around I really feel that. I worry that my next concerts will only pale in comparison. Billie Joe, you were fantastic. And I feel bad not having talked more about Tre Cool and the rest of the ensemble, because they were fantastic performers as well and equally as entertaining, but Billie Joe totally stole the show.

LOVE IT!