Note to Green Day fans that this may offend. Please keep in mind I am a massive fan of the guys who buys all their music and respect all of them as individuals and look up to them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and what you’re about to read is mine.
Green Day to me is one the biggest risk taking bands in music. Their first major record album was called “shit”, they changed their sound so many times with albums like Nimrod and Warning and they took a risk to make an anti-American rock opera which at a time if any musician did such a thing they’d be heavy criticized. Other risks include making a Broadway musical out of the anti-American record, releasing a Rock Band game and just recently releasing three albums.
So, why is it all of sudden they've stopped taking risks like this?
Fans who are gone to recent shows, while did have a good time felt the set list held no risky songs or many new songs from their three recent albums. To date only 8 of the 37 new songs are being played from¡Uno! ¡Dos! Or ¡Tré! With the rest of the set list contrasting songs from their older records.
Andres the main editor and admin for two of the most well-known fan ran Green Day sites, Green Day Authority and Green Day Community said that the trilogy is getting more attention on the tour then the other songs due the fact Green Day’s new albums consist of 20% of their publicly released music.
The band though portrayed as a older band. In most interviews, like ABC Nightline one back in September last year, that the trio are now forty year old men, that they been a band for 20 plus years and they have teenage children.
A newspaper in Australia, The Age recently ran an article (called Rock of Ages) that states that the age of 40, when you’re a musician, is when “old rock ‘n’roll begins.” This is due to the fact to what the writer, Robert Forster, describes as the 20 year climb to get a career. So it’s fair to say Green Day are covered in this category according to Forster.
Though the musical age of Green Day cannot be seen as the whole reason why the band isn’t making risks to play new songs. Anyone who’s seen the band live or even pictures of them playing will see that they’re in no risk of breaking hips or of ever slowing down with all the jumping, running and thrashing around the band does. This should not stop them from playing new stuff either even if their crowds are getting older.
Really it boils down to the iHeart Radio incident in September. After what the press is now referring to as, “Billie Joe public meltdown” Green Day, have not been taking the risks that they are most famous for. Some fans may say that this is fine due to it being still a new wound but personally, if Billie Joe and company really want to, “move on from rehab” they would start playing new songs most fans were excited to see being played live.
Songs that include, Kill the DJ, Fuck Time, Make out Party, Wow! That’s Loud, Dirty Rotten Bastards, Rusty James and Let Yourself Go…
Are we ever going to hear these songs being played?
All these songs could reference to, “post-rehab” Green Day or could offend people with the extensive swearing, which in the past Green Day have told them where to fuck off to.
The band talks about how the trilogy is the most creative and funniest records they've recorded. Is the fun we've heard so much about going to only be seen if you have or went to see, ¡Cuarto!? The fun should be shown in the whole set list with some new songs.
Yes Billie Joe, Mike, Tré and the triple J’s (Jeff, Jason White and Jason Freese) are still in the early days of this tour but the concerts in 21st Century Breakdown were regarded more entertaining and risky than this. In the 21st Century tour the guys would pull out oldie songs or any song from nowhere and play it just ‘cause.
For example, the second night Green Day were in Melbourne I remember Billie Joe playing a song without the rest of the band knowing he was going to play it. These days, the band sticks extremely close to the set list so these types of things don’t and may not happen at all. Other bands and acts all do have one set list they all follow closely but I’ve always placed Green Day as a live act in the middle ground in this regard. They have their set songs on the set list and then they’ll sly away from it before going back to it again.
Maybe Green Day is sticking close to the set list till the post rehab thing has really blown over. Although, some acts in the entertainment industry have had similar public blow ups and their career hasn't completely recovered from it. Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe, Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown and Kayne West are just some that have a career but after one blow up, they've never really recovered.
With this said I’m NOT saying that Billie Joe will be like this, I’m just saying he’ll forever have that stigma of the, “one minute” guy like Chris Brown will always be, “the guy who punched Rihanna” or Kayne is the guy who interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. And this is regardless of what goes on before or after these instances. Every celebrity at some point will have a blow over and will be the pray for the media to attack and destroy in the way the media does.
I really do wish the guys though, like most fans I’ve talked to online or have seen complaining, wish for more new songs on the set list. I’m also not saying I hate the set list as it is, I like the fact the guys aren't really playing Good Riddance anymore and I do enjoy the old material.
One girl for example, actually made a number of signs that had; “New Shit Please?” for the Providence show in Rhode Island across them and the band only really added one more song to that list. But then again with this said, if everyone held up signs that said, “One Million dollars please?” money wouldn't be put into our bank accounts or start growing on trees.
Whatever the reason for not playing more than eight songs from the trilogy, I guess fans really have to just cross their fingers and hope. Hope that Green Day embrace, “what happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas” and to bring on those risks we all love.
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