Words cannot describe how absolutely FANTASTIC it was to close out my “summer concert series” by attending the Green Day/AFI show at the Shoreline. Billie Joe, Tre Cool, Mike Dirnt & the gang from AFI ended their long tour at “fuckin’ home” as Billie Joe told the crowd.
VH1 had them on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and they came in at number 91, in my humble eyes, Green Day clearly deserved to be in the top 5 and they are also BAY AREA LEGENDS.
The show at the Shoreline (brought by Live Nation) was all that and a bag of chips. It did not come as a surprise that it was completely SOLD OUT, there was not a spot of grass on the lawn or an empty space and the guys from Green Day most definitely brought down the house.
Billie Joe could not be more excited to be HOME, dropping the names from all the cities from the Bay, the crowd cheered as Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Rodeo and many more were named. He kept telling the fans how excited him and the boys were to be back and that although many bands and celebrities choose to move to Hollywood he would never do that and that he was going to stay in Oakland (being from Oakland, his statement brought chills down my spine and tears down my cheeks.)
Green Day brings such an amazing vibe to his shows; there is really no exact way to describe it unless you witness it for yourself. I’ve witnessed tons of concerts but Green Day has a special way to reach out to fans and let them known how much they appreciate their loyalty for the past 22+ years that the band has been together. What other band do you know that brings real fans on stage to perform songs with them, during the concert a LUCKY fan got to sing Longview and at the end Billie Joe gave her the guitar he had been playing (how rad is that?) or be able to just get on stage and sing along with the band, hug them and take pictures. What other bands do you know who do corky renditions of classics from Journey, The Rolling Stones and some others. While the show was going on the band was also collecting footage for a DVD that is in the works and in Billie Joel words’ “most of the footage we’ll use will be from home.”
There might be haters out there who call Green Day sell-outs and what not but in my eyes and the eyes of the sold out crowd from the show at the Shoreline, the band will continue to play SOLD-OUT shows across the world, they will continue to make AMAZING music to please their loyal fan base and decades from now they will still be one of the GREATEST BANDS OF ALL TIME and true BAY AREA LEGENDS.
Photo Credits: Alan Ralph
