Green Day / Awesome As Fuck

Green Day
Awesome as Fuck
(Reprise Records)
* *

It will come as no surprise to the thousands of Green Day fans who attended their London, Lancashire or Glasgow shows last year that they’re a pretty unstoppable live force.

Then again, they had some visuals to go with the experience; this edit of a three hour show ‘down’ to just seventeen tracks, isn’t quite such a rollicking great time. Instead, we’re treated to Billie Joe Armstrong nasally inciting his followers with yelps of “Do you wanna start a fucking war?!” and then taking the opportunity to get them singing the opening riff to ‘East Jesus Nowhere’. The singer leads his audience in chant-a-longs just because he can, until they follow him like lobotomised mini-punks. It’s like Bono never happened.

Tracklisting-wise we move from the frankly ludicrous shit straining of ‘Know Your Enemy’ (no worse live than on record) through to more recent ruminations such as ‘Holiday’.
Yet as the classics roll out, things become commendable. ‘Geek Stink Breath’ is mercifully short and showcases the band at their brattish best, while ‘When I Come Around’ still harbours some of their truest sentiments.

Being impartial, it won’t disappoint fans of the band, with even the new track ‘Cigarettes and Valentines’ showing stock. On a more personal note, I’m just glad ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ is reserved for the DVD portion.