Green Day - Birmingham NEC Arena

The show of a lifetime. That's the only sentence that could maybe just explain how good this show really was.

Punk turned alternative legends Green Day are known around the world for their amazing live presence. With this being the first UK tour since Milton Keynes in 2005 the shows sold out within moments, but I was lucky enough to grab tickets to both Birmingham and Manchester gigs.

Waiting outside Birmingham NEC there was a buzz that throughout all my concert experiences I have truly never felt before. Led by an obviously huge fan of the band the whole crowd waiting to get into the venue joined choruses of different Green Day songs from start to finish with no error, they even managed to run through the full Jesus Of Suburbia 10 minute song without fault! This scene has easily become one of the biggest highlights of my year, challenged only by the gig itself.

As with all Green Day shows the alcoholic bunny made his staggering appearance (very literally, I might add) before the show to get the crowd as geared up as possible... this being a fairly easy task at worst! As the lights went down you truly could feel how big a moment this was for everyone, screams and cheers were almost immediately answered by the whole band running on stage in a rock and roll fashion to the sounds of the 'Song Of The Century'. The amount of energy given of by the band could easily be portrayed as three boys who still have the passion for everything they do but also the experience and knowledge that many of the more modern acts lack. For being truly one of the most well known bands on the planet they're truly down to earth and appreciative of their fans, you can tell they know that without their fan they wouldn't be where they are right now and so they make sure their fans share the stage as much as possible, by 'forming' a new band of fans who get to play their instruments and grabbing random audience members up onto the stage to interact with the band.

This is not a new crowd though and Green Day know this, which is why after a run through of a few 21st Century songs they skip back and fore between American Idiots rock opera ballads and even to Dookie's anthems of the 90's like 'She' and 'Basket Case'. All round the best live band on the planet, they've got awards to prove it too! The highlight of 2009 for me and easily the highlight of my years of gigging so far.