As I stated in my review of
Uno, Dos and Tre,
Green Day's return to the
Emirates Stadium, London is my second live experience with the pop rock giants. However, their visit to Wembley Stadium in 2010 was backed by an excellent album in the form of 21st Century Breakdown, an album I would say was one of Green Day's best. This time, however, things are different. With Billie Joe only recently coming out of rehab and their London gig the first surviving gig from the original tour before his trip there, It was concerning to see how his stage presence would change. Also, with the release of what I feel were three below average albums from the band, this trip to London for me went from sheer excitement to nervous excitement very quickly. The question is now, did Green Day deliver on their only trip to the UK on their tour?
Build Up
As with most gigs I go to, I'm not a fan of heading up on the day and coming home again. Seeing as I live a good 5 to 6 hour coach journey from London, I would probably be massively uncomfortable and tired for the entire gig and for the following days. So instead I travelled up a few days earlier with my girlfriend to enjoy London in some of the few sunny days we've seen so far this year. When it came to the day, the weather was beautiful, I met up with some of my friends who were coming and we head to the Emirates Stadium, home ground of Arsenal Football Club. I have to say, the stadium is mightily impressive. A 60,000 capacity stadium which was quite frankly astonishing to look at. Another nice touch, for a football fan at least, was the ability to walk up and down the tunnel where the players would come out onto the field. So, for a venue, it scored highly.
All Time Low
In all honesty, I've never been a huge fan of All Time Low. They've never really appealed to me. It also didn't help that I missed their first song (the only one I knew, Lost in Stereo) because I was getting Green Day Merch. Although this performance hasn't made me a super fan, they definitely set the right mood and kept the tempo up. As with a lot of opening bands in big gigs like this one, with most of the fans just wanting to see Green Day and go home, they didn't get the reception they deserved. I've always found a problem with bands like All Time Low that, sometimes, they can't deliver on stage as well as they can in the studio. I can happily say that this is not the case with All Time Low. They sounded amazing. I personal highlight for me was seeing them play Somewhere in Neverland, as well as the second half of Lost In Stereo which I actually caught. However, me and my friends ended up nicknaming them 'All Time Fuck', as after almost every song they would exclaim the word, which was funny to start with, but ended up becoming a bit grating by the fourth song. Other than that, they rocked it and set up the crowd for an awesome evening. I should also point out that All Time Low started playing at 5.20pm, which is pretty early for most gigs. This wasn't a bad thing, however, as I will explain later.
Kaiser Chiefs
For those of you who don't know, the Kaiser Chiefs are a British rock band who have been fleeting in and out of mainstream fame since their first album. They are a strange entity, as they have had some pretty big hits in the UK, and although many people came to see Green Day, there were enough voices in the crowd singing their songs to warrant see why this is the case. Personally, I haven't really followed Kaiser Chiefs' career intently. I can say, though, that their song Never Miss A Beat was the last physical single I ever bought, so it was gratifying to see them open with the hit. Ok, cut a long story short, Kaiser Chiefs were absolutely incredible live! This is something I was not expecting at all. Like I've said, I don't know many of their songs that weren't singles, but their set kept people moving and they just performed superbly. The highlight for me was actually a song I'd never heard before called Kinda Girl You Are, which has been stuck in my head since the gig. If you ever get the chance to see the Kaiser Chiefs live, I would definitely say go for it, you will not be disappointed.
Green Day
The main event. It was at this point that me and my girlfriend backed into the seats, as we couldn't see a thing through the tightly packed crowd. However, this did not ruin the atmosphere at all - in fact, it made it so much more awe inspiring. Remember I said earlier that the gig started relatively early? That is because Green Day play for on average about 2 hours. They put everything into the did and I love them because of that. As soon as I heard them begin to play their opener, 99 Revolutions, all of my worries and qualms about the band melted away and I just basked in the glory of the performance in front of me. It's hard to express in words the stage presence of Billie Joe Armstrong. He just keeps your eyes on him, daring you to look away, because when you do, you'll miss something magical. In all, the entire band were incredible. Tre did his parts perfectly, and Mike was as reliable as ever, while Jason White and the others also didn't miss a beat. You could almost feel the stadium shaking with anticipation when they first came on, and when they started to play their mega hits and even some other, less known songs, the crowd ate it up so well and that energy stayed until the bitter end. A personal highlight for me was Waiting, as I love the album Warning, and as always their rendition of King For A Day brought a smile to everyone's faces. If I had one problem with the whole gig, it was the fact they didn't play Time of Your Life (Good Riddance). I know this was because of curfew restrictions, and Brutal Love ending the set was pretty damn amazing too, but it seemed a staple of Green Day sets and it was just missing. But what am I complaining about? The songs they played were incredible, the atmosphere was electric and it was everything you could have asked for from a Green Day gig and more. Great stadium, great support and as always, the Great Green Day captivate another UK crowd.
To Wrap Up...
Do I really have to wrap up? I mean, it's Green Day, of course they're going to deliver a captivating and frankly incredible performance in front of the UK fans. I was more surprised by the quality of the warm up acts than the quality of Green Day. All Time Low and Kaiser Chiefs really upped the atmosphere ten fold by keeping the crowd on their feet and did their job warming them up for Green Day to knock them down. It was one of the best gigs I've ever been to and, when Green Day come around again, I'll be waiting...(see what I did there?)
