Posts

Green Day - The best, worst kept secret in all of the U.K. right now

Posted on Sep 01, 2012 | Comments (0)

Look what happened to James at Reading...

"As I walked into the entrance of the festival after my trip to Tescos all I hear is an exaggerated: “Welcome to paraaadise” I shrugged it off initially but it followed with a roaring applause. Immediately, I gave my shopping to my friends and joined a group of mutual sprinters to see one of the most entertaining shows I’ve ever seen.

Much to the disdain of the security guards working at the time, the group of mutual sprinters had become a crowd. As I got through the entrance into the main stage area they warned us to: “stop fucking running!?” I ran past them and got a decent spot to watch Green Day on the NME stage.

Front man Billie Joe announces that this is the: “Best, worst kept secret in all of the U.K right now”. They played their new single: ‘Oh love’, which was great sounding live as well as classics from their Dookie era. At one point, Billie Joe gets onto the side of the stage with an object unknown to me, but it shoots toilet paper. He also had a water pistol and one of the camera crew's cameras. He receives a sailor hat from a crowd member and begins to dance like a stripper onstage.

A short way into 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' it's announced they’re short on time but a burst into 'Longview' and Billie announces defiantly he’s going to carry on playing anyway… The NME stage where Green Day was playing was packed and overflowing so they weren’t letting anymore people in; to make up for this they had the show playing through the large screens which were broadcasting all over the site but mainly the main stage. But they shut the screens off for the first act of the main stage. As a result of this the first act of the main stage was booed relentlessly.

Meanwhile, everyone’s going mental at 'American Idiot' and they have an accordion player and a few other musicians to help with their performance of 'Minority'.

It was hard to take in at the time that I was actually watching them. Possibly one of the greatest starts to a day ever. Definitely my festival highlight."