Green Day came to Sydney to proclaim the revolution, and their music commanded the crowd like gospel.
It’s a fact that the enduring Bay Area rockers don’t need any help to draw an audience – their discography is enough to do that alone. They’re the epitome of Californian punk rock, and a sold-out arena is testament as much. So at what point in their career did Green Day decide they could no longer get by on their music alone?
The stage was an elaborate circus of pyrotechnics, streaming lights and water cannons, all framing a six-piece band that ran through several costume changes, the additional musicians necessary to bulk out what would otherwise be a hollow-sounding setlist for such a venue. The core Green Day trio threw themselves across the stage at regular intervals, shooting their eyes over as many fans as possible with cries of “Sydney, Australia!” regularly shrieked by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong.
Truth be told, anything less than a bombastic arena show would have been a disappointment. At least four fans were pulled onstage to join the band’s antics, a weird rendition of ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ was interjected with the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” chant, and the set even included some rock’n’roll classics, including the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ intro.
Yet with all-time triumphs of their own like ‘Letterbomb’, ‘St. Jimmy’, ‘Basket Case’ and ‘Holiday’, not to mention the encore double of ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’, and a second encore consisting of ‘Ordinary World’ and the timeless ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’, Armstrong and co. didn’t need the bells and whistles to carry the show – not when they’ve got such a proven history of songwriting genius to boast about.
Green Day played Qudos Bank Arena on Wednesday April 10. Photos by Ashley Mar
