When going to see a band with a career spanning over 40 years and 14 studio albums to their name, what can one expect them to play? Hopefully a sample of their latest work, alongside a handful of their greatest classics.
On day two of Montreal's Osheaga Music and Arts Festival, Green Day fulfilled these expectations and delivered much more throughout their two-hour performance, appealing to old fans and new ones alike with a diverse array of tracks from their expansive discography.
The show started off in a rather bizarre manner: fans piled up in front of the festival's River Stage, but instead of hearing the iconic opening guitar riff from a song like "American Idiot" or "Welcome to Paradise," Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on the speakers, and the crowd started chanting along. This was followed by the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop," and a rabbit mascot took to the stage to hype the crowd up. It was unclear whether this was part of the show's opening or because the band was running late, but none of this mattered; everyone was having fun, and nobody seemed to care.
The band took to the stage around 9 p.m. and opened up with "The American Dream is Killing Me," the opening song from this year's Saviors. This moment signalled a clear contrast between old-school and new-school Green Day fans, with the latter belting out the lyrics while the others mumbled along. But immediately afterward, the band began celebrating the 30th anniversary of their third studio album, Dookie, by playing some of its biggest hits.
"Coors? Coors, that's no fuckin' beer!" Billie Joe Armstong said to his fans in-between verses of "Longview," looking devilish in his black suit with bright red breast pockets. "Wait, what fuckin' verse am I on," he continued in an attempt to return to the song, and the crowd erupted into laughter.
Certainly, this nonchalant quality was not due to a lack of preparedness. Rather, Green Day proved to be such masters of their art that they could seamlessly navigate from one track to the next in a way that made the whole performance look easy. The trio seemed to be just having fun, and that feeling emanated from the stage directly into the audience.
After playing a few more Dookie classics including "Welcome to Paradise," "She" and "When I Come Around," Billie began belting out the lyrics to "Know Your Enemy," even bringing a fan onto the stage to sing the song's final lines. "Brain Stew" came shortly after, and, as it ended, a giant cutout of an iconic black-and-white hand holding a bloody red grenade rose up from behind the band. It was time to play the hits off of American Idiot, and everyone knew it, screaming wildly when Billie announced its 20th anniversary and jumping en masse when they worked their way down the album to the hit track "Holiday." "The representative of Montreal has the floor," Billie announced during the song's interlude, replacing the word "California" in the original lyrics.
Throughout the two hours of time they had allotted for their performance, Green Day proved their legendary status, getting the crowd to dance and chant along time after time, pulling out quick covers of songs like "Free Fallin'" and "Iron Man," and giving the impression that they genuinely care for the music, as well as each and every one of their fans. "Think about all the people we've lost," Armstrong said as the sun went down, "but think about how we're all together here at this now at this beautiful festival. This is no party — this is a celebration!"
The show's stage setup was nearly as impressive as the music itself, complete with pyrotechnics, sparklers, and fireworks. A speaker seemed to blow out mid-performance as the show suddenly became much more quiet, but, apart from a few Redditors, the crowd didn't seem to mind too much.
Billie's eyes bulged out of his head a little more with each track, but as the night came to a close, he swapped out his electric guitar for an acoustic one and his demeanour seemed to shift into something more relaxed. "We don't do encores," he said, laughing. "We just don't stop playing." The trio proceeded to play "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" as the final track of the evening, and, as the lights dimmed out to signal that Green Day's headlining show had finally come to a close, the crowd dispersed, leaving the festival grounds with the strange feeling that two hours had just flown by in an instant.