Superstar punk rockers Green Day have rolled out the hits in a spectacular secret show in New York.
With their new album ’21st Century Breakdown’ finally on the shelves of a record shop near you, Green Day are set to hit the road. The band thrive on the intimacy of a live performance, and have decided to warm up for their forthcoming tour with a series of small scale dates.
Green Day returned to California recently for a secret show. Delighting fans with a lengthy set, the performance harked back to their roots in the West Coast punk scene. Before signing to a major label for ‘Dookie’ the group were strictly DIY, with their early releases due for re-issue this year.
Now the band have teamed up with social networking site MySpace to play a tiny show in New York. Well, we say tiny – in actuality there were just over 1000 fans there. Taking place in Manhatten’s Webster Hall the band played a two hour set that was split in half.
Recently the group have taken to playing lengthier and lengthier sets. A show in the Bowery Ballroom saw Green Day play one hour’s worth of material from ’21st Century Breakdown’ before running through another hours of classics and rarities.
In a recent interview the band promised a number of surprises for their forthcoming British tour dates. Green Day cited Bruce Springsteen as an influence, and promised to match the famously lengthy shows of The Boss.
Currently number one with their new album ’21st Century Breakdown’ the band pulled a fan from the crowd to sing the chorus of recent single ‘Know Your Enemy’.
The crowd greeted the new material rapturously, but reserved the biggest cheer for the second half of the set. Green Day raced through their early classics, even playing ‘At The Library’ from their very first album ‘1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours’.
During ‘Longview’ singer Billie Joe Armstrong pulled a fan from the crowd to sing the chorus, before playing a medley of Cheap Trick’s ‘Surrender’ and The Replacements’ ‘Bastards Of Young’ – also covered by The Cribs.
Finishing with ‘Minority’ Green Day seemed on ferocious form ahead of their British tour. With all dates sold out, the band even added a third night to their residency in London’s Wembley Arena.
