{"id":5965,"date":"2024-09-09T16:10:51","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T20:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=5965"},"modified":"2024-09-09T16:10:52","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T20:10:52","slug":"a-night-with-green-day-on-the-saviors-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2024\/09\/09\/a-night-with-green-day-on-the-saviors-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"A Night with Green Day on the Saviors Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following the release of their album, Saviors, in 2024, Green Day announced a world tour for the album. However, 2024 marked two even bigger milestones for the band. This year is the  30th<\/sup> anniversary of their album Dookie, and the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of American Idiot. Named after the new album, the Saviors tour brought their friends Linda Lindas, Rancid, and Smashing Pumpkins, and promised one thing: Green Day would play the entire  of both Dookie and American Idiot.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So right from the jump I will admit…my group and I missed the first two performances of this show. The drive to Hershey PA took a little longer than expected…maybe next time we won\u2019t stop at that Krispy Kreme (yes, we will).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got inside the venue just as the Smashing Pumpkins were taking the stage, and this was a pretty solid way to kickoff to the show. Their set had some classics like Tonight, Tonight<\/em> and Bullet with Butterfly Wings <\/em>that were fun to jam to. But they also played some songs that I had never heard before so it was nice to expand my knowledge of their discography.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will say that my least favorite aspect of this whole show was the stage presence of the Smashing Pumpkins. They certainly know how to bring the house down with their musical abilities, but it felt as though they would have given the exact same performance to a crowd of 100 people that they would\u2019ve given to a crowd of 10,000.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few and far between were any fun crowd comments or interactions. The most notable coming from the guitarist, James Iha, when he asked, \u201cAre you having a reasonable time tonight\u201d? I thought this was an odd way to hype the crowd up, but I\u2019m not a member of a long-standing influential rock group so what do I know?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However following this set, the lights went down and everyone was on their feet. To warm the crowd up Bohemian Rhapsody, and Blitzkrieg Bop blared throughout the stadium while a guy in a bunny suit ran around on the stage signaling the crowd to scream louder, and boy did they as Mike Dirnt, Tre\u2019 Cool, and Billie Joe Armstrong made their way to the stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBetter late than never, right Hershey?!\u201d  Armstrong screamed to welcome the crowd that had been waiting since early August when the show had to be postponed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set Green Day played was one for the books. Consisting of an astounding 35 songs (Two of which are around 10 minutes long) Green Day\u2019s set went on for around Two and a half hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The band more than delivered on the promise to play Dookie, and American Idiot entirely, and occasionally throwing in songs from other albums such as Minority<\/em> and Know your enemy<\/em>. Played in order of track lists from the two record breaking albums, the stadium full of singing fans could\u2019ve punched a hole through the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set was also stocked full of quirky little moments that felt unique to this show. During one instance Billie Joe played the opening riff to the song Iron Man and<\/em> played around a full minute of John Melencamp’s Jack and Diane<\/em>. There also was an instance where one of the fire jets continued to spew fire much longer than anticipated, where the band mates joked \u201cdoes anybody want smores?\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the standout songs from their legendary set were Brain stew, Know your Enemy, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and (Billie Joe telling the crowd \u201cThat time of year guys\u201d) Wake me up when September ends.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, one song that I had been looking forward to all night stood out among all the others. The opening to Letter bomb ripped through the stadium, and about halfway through Billie Joe took a few minutes (instrumentals to the song still being played in the background) to get candid with the crowd.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTonight we are all gathered together, to love one another, to dance together, to scream together…because this is f*cking unity! …. Right, Left, Gay, Straight, Trans, Whatever!\u201d<\/em> \u201cQuit F*cking with trans kids!\u201d<\/em> – Billie Joe Armstrong <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that stadium there were no political parties. There simply were Green Day Fans, and it was refreshing to be in a place where it felt as though we were looking for similarities as opposed to differences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 If you are a Green Day fan, I hope that you find a way to experience this tour. Green Day was the main player in the foundation of my music taste, and if this is the only time I\u2019m able to see them, I\u2019m glad it was for this tour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To finish this out, to Billie Joe\u2019s point. As we head into this election cycle, please remember that we are all human. Be nice to one another and do your best to look out for the little guys.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the release of their album, Saviors, in 2024, Green Day announced a world tour for the album. However, 2024 marked two even bigger milestones for the band. This year is the  30th anniversary of their album Dookie, and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot. Named after the new album, the Saviors tour brought their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":5966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/09\/processed-B30F9E62-39B5-4A1D-82C7-0C15B1A2B0EC-scaled-e1725908550132.jpeg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/09\/processed-B30F9E62-39B5-4A1D-82C7-0C15B1A2B0EC-scaled-e1725908550132.jpeg","author_info":{"display_name":"Matt Davis-Howard","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/matthew-davishoward\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}