Green Day declare Australia is ‘not as f**ked up as America’ at blistering Sydney show
Green Day injected their Sydney show with Aussie flavour including a nod to Raygun, a hometown rocker and a politically-charged compliment.
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Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong drew a huge roar when he declared “Australia, you’re not as f**ked up as America” during the punk favourites’ blistering stadium show in Sydney on Monday.
The frontman’s comment at Engie Stadium came after he launched a blistering spray against US President Donald Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk during the band’s opening show in Melbourne on Saturday.
“Don’t you want these f***ing politicians to shut the f**k up?” he asked the Melbourne crowd.
“Don’t you want Elon Musk to shut the f**k up? Don’t you want Donald Trump to shut the f**k up?”
In Sydney, as the band played their seminal records, 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot in full to celebrate their respective anniversaries, Armstrong chose to take a unifying stance.
“Tonight, we’re going to share our hearts together, we’re going to put all of our differences away right now. Australia, you’re not as f**ked up as America though,” he said.
The American punk rockers have enjoyed a three decade-long love affair with rock fans here and seeded the show with tributes to other local heroes.
Drunk Bunny, the band’s hilarious mascot, opened the show with his usual warm-up antics before busting a Raygun-inspired breakdance floor move to wild cheers from more than 50,000 fans.
Armstrong also shouted out the influence of AC/DC’s Malcolm Young on his career.
“I just wanna thank Malcolm Young for teaching me how to play the rhythm guitar,” he said as the band played a snippet of “Highway To Hell” before launching into “Brain Stew.”
For more than two and a half hours, Green Day’s Saviors world tour concert was a masterclass in stadium rock.
Set against a giant production with colourful graphics, a Bad Year blimp flying above the arena and a massive budget for pyros and fireworks, the band rocketed through Dookie and American Idiot in their entirety, separated by a mini greatest hits and new stuff set which included “Know Your Enemy”, “Minority” and “One Eyed Bastard.”
Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool looked and played like they had been unleashed from the time capsules of their youth, the guitar, bass and drums striking that unmistakably Green Day sound.
They recaptured the cheeky ennui of Dookie for the OG fans and their kids who were witnessing the band in full flight for the first time.
The American Idiot set packed a hefty punch. The locked-in trio and the assisted brute force of two guitarists and a keyboardist cracked a breakneck pace through the punk rock opera record shaped by the disillusion of a generation who came of age in the era of 9/11 and the Iraq war which resonates strongly in these troubled times two decades later.
Its political overtones were countered with Green Day’s signature humour. Tre Cool brought the comic relief, dressed in a smoking jacket as he cavorted around the stage to an orchestral version of All By Myself, the hidden final track on Dookie.
There’s something deceptively sweet about Green Day, underpinning the punk bravado.
Armstrong clearly loves the fans and is overjoyed when they engage with huge singalongs. The sweetness also hums in the background when Dirnt and their other band members deliver 60s-inspired harmonies and counterpoints.
It was non-stop fun on a school night - despite the hellish train queues afterwards - and one hopes it won’t be another eight years before they grace Australian stages again.
Green Day conclude the Australian leg of the tour at the Cbus Super Stadium on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.
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