green day

I know, it looks like a typical day in the office.

Actually, we'd decided to go along to the Hammersmith Apollo to see that Green Day show. I think of Green Day as a sort of guilty pleasure of a band. Slews of power chords and nearly everything set to maximum, we'd decided it wasn't going to be a quiet affair.

The musical is the fourth re-incarnation of the American Idiot album (after the live gig CD called Bullet in a Bible and the live DVD from, yes, Milton Keynes).

The musical is an excuse to play all of the American Idiot tracks back to back (and a few extra ones) with a thin story-line of three bored teenagers making their way from the post 9/11 'burbs. One becomes a father, one goes to war and the third does drugs.

Add in full-on Green Day tunes at express train speed. By the end of the first half we were wondering if there could be many more songs left from that album, but sure enough, the second half didn't disappoint.

There's a rage throughout the storyline which has a kind of deliberately chaotic manner and a jagged ending (pre-encore) to an entertaining evening.