As Billie Joe Armstrong reminded everyone at their biggest ever UK show, Green Day have been going for quite a long time now; when they first came to London in 1991, he told 80,000 people at the closing night of their tour, the venue was so small they had to play in a room with snooker tables. Over 75 million albums sales later, they’ve been going so long, in fact, they can now present what is essentially their own version of the Eras tour, one that charts the evolution of Gen X Californian pop-punk. The Saviors Tour, named after this year’s not-quite-return-to-form UK number one album, also celebrated the anniversaries of Green Day’s two landmark, mega-selling albums: breakthrough third record Dookie, 30-years-old, and career high American Idiot, 20 years on, were both played in full.
“This is not a party, it’s a celebration!” Armstrong asserted; one that whizzed by in a buzz of relentlessly hi-octane rock thrills. As a devout rock purist from the Bay Area punk scene, Armstrong has always been slightly sniffy about the pop-punk label, with its implication of deliberately selling out; probably not helped by the fact many of the things Green Day influenced – everyone from Avril Lavigne to Busted – ended up far more pop than punk. But in reality it’s a compliment: in the same way that at their best Ramones were a essentially a pop band, so too Green Day could package their juvenile concerns – anxiety, identity, boredom, childish humour, sex (or lack thereof).
