IM-ing WITH KYLE (13 YRS OLD!) ABOUT THE GREEN DAY CONCERT

Over the weekend, I went to see Green Day at PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey with my wife, my cousin, and her son Kyle.  It was Kyle's first rock concert.  I was interested in his impressions of the show and I figured discussing it via IM would be the best way to share the conversation (with the permission of Kyle and his parents of course). I was a bit jealous: I remember how exciting my first concert was (Rush at the Brendan Byrne Arena on the Grace Under Pressure tour in 1985). Anyway, I haven't been to a Green Day concert in about a decade, since the  Warning tour, when they were not as happening as they are now (the next album, American Idiot, changed their fortunes considerably). These days they are bona fide arena headliners and they really embraced it (the show was extremely sold out, meanwhile Live Nation employees were selling discount tickets for a number of upcoming shows). Kyle's next concert will have a hard time living up to this one.  Anyway, our IM conversation:

4:02pm Me: so how did you like your FIRST ROCK CONCERT?

4:02pm Kyle: IT WAS AMAZING

4:03pm Me: what was your favorite part?

4:05pm Kyle: when people were getting pulled up on stage (during "Longview") that was cool

4:06pm Me: what year were you born in again?

4:06pm Kyle: 1997

4:06pm Me: so it doesn't bother you that the songs from "dookie" are older than you are? some kids don't like "old" music, right?

4:06pm Kyle: well...those kids have no taste in music

4:07pm Me: ha ha ha good for you

4:07pm Kyle: it doesn't bother me at all "2000 light years away" is one of my favorite songs

4:07pm Me: wow, that's even older than "dookie" I think

4:07pm Kyle: yeah i think it is from "kerplunk"

4:08pm Me: so you don't buy the full albums though, you just download whichever songs you like?

4:08pm Kyle: well i use only itunes giftcards and i buy the full albums when i have enough

4:09pm Me: but you don't care about owning the actual CD, right?

4:09pm Kyle: when i have the cd i don't buy it. I import it into itunes

4:10pm Me: right, me too. did you know the song "who wrote holden caufield"? that was the one when the singer from AFI (Davey Havok) joined them on stage

4:10pm Kyle: no never heard of it

4:11pm Me: so does that make you want to check for it in the itunes store?

4:11pm Kyle: well now i am curious so i will check it out

4:11pm Me: by the way, do you know who holden caufield is?

4:11pm Kyle: no, am i supposed to?

4:12pm Me: your mom would know - he is the main character in a book called "Catcher In The Rye" that you will probably read in school in the next 2 or 3 years

4:12pm Kyle: oh yeah...she mentioned that during the concert

4:12pm Me: so did you have any expectations for what the show would be like from watching Green Day live DVDs - or even from the scenes in rock band?

4:13pm Kyle: i expected it to be awesome but i also expected it to be adult like

4:13pm Me: what do you mean by that?

4:13pm Kyle: like cursing and such

4:13pm Me: there was a lot of cursing!

4:13pm Kyle: yes yes there was but i dont mind it

4:14pm Me: what did you think of the crowd?

4:14pm Kyle: drunk smoking losers

4:14pm Kyle: but that might be harsh

4:15pm Kyle: but they were drunk and smoking

4:16pm Me: how did you like it, compared to American Idiot the Musical?

4:16pm Kyle: it was more authentic maybe because it was actually green day not actors

4:20pm Me: Green Day used to be considered a "punk rock" band - does "punk rock" mean anything to you?

4:20pm Kyle: no not really i think of green day as an alternative rock band

4:20pm Kyle: unless that is the same thing as "punk rock"

4:21pm Me: what does "alternative rock" mean to you? what rock band is not "alternative"?

4:22pm Kyle: well i look at aerosmith or guns n' roses or ozzy osbourne as rock

4:22pm Me: that's a good observation

4:22pm Kyle: i look at green day as alternative

4:23pm Me: "alternative" generally means that something was influenced by punk rock - punk rock rebelled against rock and roll bands in the '70s and '80s. kids felt that rock and roll had gotten too big. so it was ironic when bands like Nirvana and Green Day started getting just as big

4:23pm Kyle: yeah

4:23pm Me: some bands could not deal with it - like nirvana. billie joe and the green day guys really seem to enjoy playing on a huge stage

4:24pm Kyle: yeah i know as they said "This is the most F***ing fun we have had on this F***ing tour!!"

4:25pm Me: ha ha, that's right. when they started playing all of those rock covers like Satisfaction, how did you know all of those songs?

4:25pm Kyle: well

4:25pm Kyle:guitar hero

4:25pm Kyle: :)

4:25pm Kyle: but i knew about the stones before gh

4:26pm Me: I am a big fan of guitar hero even though I don't have it! if it turns people on to those songs (satisfaction was a hit like six years before I was born!)

4:26pm Kyle: wow

4:26pm Me: anyway, thanks for IMing with me. what other bands do you want to see in concert, maybe we can go with you and your mom to another one

4:27pm Kyle: i like aerosmith,

4:27pm Kyle: i like bruce springsteen

4:27pm Kyle: pretty much rock in general

4:28pm Me: those are both great. Bruce isn't touring this year - too bad you'll be away during that aerosmith concert.  what about KISS?  are they on rock band or guitar hero?

4:28pm Kyle: oooooh i like kiss as well and yes

4:28pm Kyle: I WANNA ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT

4:28pm Kyle: AND PARTY EVERYDAY

4:29pm Me: any last thoughts on the green day concert?

4:29pm Kyle: IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME AND BOSTON CAN'T BEAT THE NJ, NY AND SURROUNDING AREAS' CROWD!!!!

4:30pm Me:  ha ha great. OK, thanks for IMing with me and tell your mom I said hi.
4:31pm Kyle: ok

4:31pm Kyle: bye

BEST OF THE 00's: GREEN DAY

In the '90s, I liked Green Day, but found them a bit overexposed and annoying. I became a fan at the exact moment where it seemed that people had lost interest: their 2000 album, Warning. I saw the video for "Minority" (which inspired my posting name on this very blog) and I was sold. Even if you are white, suburban and middle class, you can feel like you don't fit in, and "Minority" is all about that. Warning had some other great songs, like "Warning" (although how they avoided getting the crap sued out of them by The Kinks - the song sounds exactly like "Picture Book" - I don't know).

I saw them on that tour - they had scaled down from arenas to large theaters and it was a bit more intimate.  There were probably less fair weather fans at the show, it was great. But after that, they went on a "co-headlining" tour with blink-182, who had clearly copped some of their schtick from Green Day, and did it in a more safe and less punk way. Green Day played before blink. Green Day seemed to be going the way of lots of other Lollapalooza vets: even though they were just in their thirties, they were going to be '90s nostalgia.

And then: American Idiot.

In a democracy, questioning your government is a duty, and even a patriotic one if you do it without malice. American Idiot, recorded and released during bush's reign, is an against-all-odds classic. In the age where no one was making very political statements, it was a big one. In an era where "the album" was dead, it was a concept album in the spirit of Tommy. And when very few rock bands were getting hit singles, American Idiot was all over the radio. The tour started out in clubs and ended in stadiums.  Green Day was the most relevant band in the land. The band who used to sing about being stoned and being bored. They ended up collaborating with no less than U2 (on "The Saints Are Coming") and with The Simpsons (covering the show's theme for the film, which they appeared in, animated style).

Following it up must have been a bitch, so the band came up with a new identity, The Foxboro Hot Tubs and released my favorite album of 2008, Stop Drop and Roll, a classic garage rock album.

21st Century Breakdown has been one of my favorite rock albums of 2009, although something of a letdown after American Idiot and The Foxboro Hot Tubs. Still, this is a band that will remain relevant for years to come.

BEST ROCK ALBUM? GREEN DAY OR U2?

No Expiration is a NARAS member and Grammy voter, and this weekend, I've spent time on my ballot. One category I'm stuck in is Best Rock Album. My favorite albums that would be considered for this category were unsuprisingly not nominated: The Cocktail Slippers' Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Rancid's Let The Dominioes Fall, The Dead Weather's Horehound and Muse's The Resistance. 

The nominees in the category, though, are AC/DC's Black Ice, Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood's Live From Madison Square Garden (which is disqualified from my ballot, many of the songs on the album are as old as I am, and some are older, you can't compare albums that came out this year to Blind Faith and Traffic), The Dave Matthews Band's Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown and U2 's No Line On The Horizon.

So, Clapton/Winwood is disqualified. While I respect DMB, I'm not a huge fan and their album didn't seem to make any kind of impact. I really dig Black Ice, but I really think the best of the bunch are the Green Day and U2 albums.

Green Day's album was a bit disappointing to me: it comes on the heels of my favorite album of 2008, Foxboro Hot Tubs' Stop Drop and Roll (Foxboro Hot Tubs are actually Green Day playing old school garage rock). And before that was Green Day's greatest album, American Idiot. But there are a lot of classics here, I love "Know Your Enemy," "21st Century Breakdown," "Peacemaker," "21 Guns" and especially "Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" which sounds like a Foxboro Hot Tubs song.

U2's album, as always comes with huge expectations, and at first I felt a bit let down. It has definitely been growing on me, and I now realize that "Moment Of Surrender" is one of their greatest songs. And there are other great songs: "No Line On The Horizon," "Magnificent," "Breathe," "Stand Up Comedy" and "White As Snow." One of the problems with the album is that they led off with a kind of weak single, "Get On Your Boots," which was like a second rate version of "Vertigo." And their performance at last year's Grammy Awards wasn't great (the live version they've been doing on tour is much better), and the second single, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" is also weak (the "remix" version that they were playing live was also better).

Tough decision: but a few years ago when I was doing interviews for VH1 at the 2004 Grammys, Bono himself told me that he was glad that they had won a bunch of Grammys (for "Vertigo") but that U2 would gladly step out of the way for another band -- he mentioned Green Day -- to get more acclaim.  There's room for everyone of course. Hmm, this is gonna be a touch choice.