Last week, when I saw an invitation to attend a secret Green Day show at the House of Blues Anaheim, I thought “I’ve finally made it”. Since reviving The Indy Review in 2017, the website has been a labor of love, grown with the help of some likeminded, music-loving writers and a lot of hustle. I never expected it to grow as it has, nor to get to the point where I was getting VIP bracelets to watch one of my all-time favorite bands play an exclusive show to a room packed with music industry luminaries.
The night immediately felt special as I and my +1, and old college friend who I’ve seen countless punk shows with over the years, took the elevator up to the HoB’s Foundation Room, an extremely classy room with great service and easy access to the balcony seating. Not long after sitting, Marko DeSantis of Sugarcult/Bad Astronaut fame walked in with his wife. We chatted, having met him a couple times over the years, and it was clear this was going to be a good evening. Throughout the evening, I would say hi to a few other people I’ve gotten to know since starting The Indy Review, like Miles Anzaldo from KROQ and Matt Pinfield of MTV fame. I also spotted actors like Breckin Meyer in the audience and got to put a face to the names of the awesome 2B Entertainment team (whom I’m so grateful invited me) and a member of Hopeless Records’ PR team who I had just been emailing the week before.
As I said – this was the place to be if you could be there. And while the night was dedicated to the massive NorCal punk legends, Green Day invited a younger Oakland group, UltraQ, to open the show. The alt rock group played a selection of their newer songs and older ones, and sounded solid as they warmed up the crowd for the event to come. Kudos to Green Day for having a lesser-known band open, since they could likely have gotten anyone.
As they do at their larger shows, Green Day began their set with a rambunctious person in a pink rabbit outfit rushing the stage to the Ramones, building the hype for the band’s entrance. As they took the stage with some humble goofiness, Green Day broke into “American Idiot”, and so the moshing began. I think as I’ve said in previous posts about the group, their live show is top notch. There’s not much else to say – they bring their songs to life perfectly.
The group then launched into the title track of their fantastic new album Saviors (already vying for my AOTY). While that track comes later in the album, they proceeded to then play all of the new album from front to back, and man did it sound good live. While the singles like “The American Dream is Killing Me” is peak American Idiot and “Look Ma, No Brains” a raucous call-back to Dookie-era snottiness, the majority of the album is hugely flavored in 70’s power pop (and as one of Feedspot’s Top 30 Best Power Pop Blogs, you might guess I would dig this). Tracks like the sugary “1981” and “Coma City” speed along with endless melodicism, and “Goodnight Adeline” and “Suzy Chapstick” would make the late Eric Carmen (The Raspberries) proud.
With the album played in triumphant form, the band then dug into some older goodies, but not the ones you’d expect. From Dookie, they pulled out “Burnout”, “Pulling Teeth”, “Chump” and the effervescent “She”. I will admit I had my fingers crossed for “Having a Blast” or “Sassafras Roots”, but was denied that extra pleasure. But when they went into their American Idiot deep-cuts, I was granted the powerful and moving “Letterbomb” and “Whatsername”, so I still couldn’t complain. While I was told the band was granted as much time as they wanted to play that night, they kept their encore brief, with Tre Cool playing “All By Myself” solo on acoustic guitar, and the rest of the band coming back out for wonderful “Minority”.
Two hour drive down be damned, this show was more than worth it. My love for Green Day continues, and now more than ever, I’m happy I’ve stuck it out with The Indy Review. Sometimes writing articles about music you love just for fun can lead to places you never guessed.
You can catch Green Day on tour with Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and Linda Lindas this year, and listen to Saviors here!
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