So Bret and I made it to the Green Day concert at Madison Square Garden on Monday July 27, 2009. Little late getting up the info but none the less, this was an amazing show. The full setlist will be at the end of this post alone with all the pics and video I shot.

What can I say, we were on the floor, general admission pit area and we made it as close to the stage as possible, which meant Billy Joe and Mike Dirnt were playin in our faces (and dont forget Mr. Tre Cool). I was able to snap some great photos of the and all in all the show exceeded all my expectations, they played everything I wanted to hear and knocked every single song out of the park with not a dull moment in the entire set. The stage set, the lighting, the pyrotechnics all were flawless. This is where you gotta thank the crew as much as Green Day for making it an all around killer concert.

They opened the show exactly as their new album begins, starting with the piano intro from Song of the Century which built the anticipation into 21st Century Breakdown which is what this tour is all about. They finally made it to East Jesus Nowhere which happens to be a personal favorite of mine and I was ready for whatever they could throw at me and oh yeah, the rest of the screaming fans at MSG that night.

They quickly mixed in Holiday before getting back to the new tunes which again is what
this tour was all about. If anyone has any doubts as to the validity of this new record, 21st Century Breakdown is every bit as good as American Idiot if not better. The songs on 21st Century Breakdown, 18 in total, hold up just as good live as they do on CD (or MP3 or streaming or however you consume your music these days). Green Day has really accomplished something by being able to release 2 epic albums in a row, even if we did have to wait 4 years for it.

After some hits off American Idiot it was time to get back to the oldies but goodies with the likes of 2000 Light Years Away, Welcome to Paradise and When I Come Around. They noodled around with Castaway pretending to forget it ( yeah right). Either way, in the moment, it was a good teaser.

Green Day took a bit of a mid-show break and played some covers including I Don't Know, Sweet Home Alabama, Thank You, Sweet Child O'Mine before heading right back on track with hits like Brain Stew, Jaded, Longview, Basket Case, need I say more? The show started strong and finished strong. As they played King for A Day, its worth mentioning the sax player was dressed as Michael Jackson in the Thriller video with a "germ mask" on his face. All I'll say is classic. Try and find a pic out there if you can, I couldn't snap a clean one.

So now we hit the encores and the highlight of the first one was a girl named Stephanie who got the chance to go up on stage with Billy and the boys and play Jesus of Suburbia. Not only did she play it, she commanded the stage. Not only did she get her 9 minutes of fame but it continued into the next day with blogs writing about her appearance, people posting videos and giving her all kinds of praise. Check out the article written here.

Green Day ended the night in classic fashion with a second encore and Billy Joe on acoustic guitar, playing Drama Queen into Last Night on Earth which I was lucky enough to get a decent video of ( I said decent, not great, I think its time I look for a better cell phone)

Here are the photos I took from the show: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=95160&id=501453289&l=43f8457cbb

I mentioned most of the songs Green Day played that night but here is the complete setlist:

Encore:

Encore 2:

Green Day - New Music - More Music Videos