Passed The Point of Delirium

Ah, Green Day.

Finally!

Finally, you can be scratched off a list I just made up, of bands I never saw and should try to if given the chance, even if your current tour album sucks an ass.

Lately, I have been hearing a whole lot of bashing of this band. I don't know when Green Day became considered overrated or became the tail end of hate but then again, I also did not know when Green Day became so "family friendly".

Despite the rampant ill-speaking, I'm convinced that those people just haven't seen Green Day and need to get over their hangups about kids attending their concerts. Sure it weirded me out too to discover kids as young as 6 where there, as well as people as old as 50 something but who cares?!

Green Day put on one of the best shows I've seen.

They had energy to burn, and played for a solid 3 hours with fun crowd interaction and so much personality.

They've come quite the long way from 1994 when I first took notice and you can see the boys have aged some but they're still crazy as ever, more seasoned and awesome enough to put on a huge production show at MSG (definitely one of the biggest I've been to - and perhaps even TOO huge for MSG's 'tiny' space).



The Green Day @ Madison Square Garden 7/28/2009 Set List:

1. Song of the Century
2. 21st Century Breakdown
3. Know Your Enemy
4. Murder City
5. East Jesus Nowhere
6. Holiday
7. Static Age
8. Before the Lobotomy
9. Are We the Waiting
10. St. Jimmy
11. Boulevard of Broken Dreams
12. A Quick One While He's Away (The Who)
13. Hitchin a Ride
14. Welcome to Paradise
15. Stop, Drop, and Roll/ Eye of the Tiger
16. FOD
17. When I Come Around
18. Going to Pasalacqua
19. Stuart And The Ave./ Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?
20. Iron Man riff
21. Brain Stew
22. Jaded
23. Knowledge
24. Basket Case
25. She
26. King For a Day
27. Shout/ Earth Angel (The Penguins)/ Christie Road
/ I'll Be There
28. 21 Guns
29. American Eulogy

30. American Idiot
31. Jesus of Suburbia
32. Minority
33. Macy's Day Parade
34. Tell Me When It's Time to Say I Love You (AI b-side)
35. Good Riddance

Are you seeing this? 35 friggin' songs! They played forever! And they played non-stop, only leaving the stage once, although they cleverly disguised their breaks by creating make shift bands and inviting peeps to come up on stage.

The Low-Lamps:

1. That girl who got invited up to sing "Dearly Beloved". OMG, her voice was awful. It should have been me up there! I could have winged it a little bit better. Maybe. Not to mention her ass was in our faces. Ugh, gross. But I did laugh when Billie Joe held his head because she was so awful. That was just damned classic.

2. Billie Joe's constant "Ay ooh"s. There were too many Billie Joe. Too many! You were trying to keep us awake and pumped but there was no need. We already were even coming down to the hour 3, we were still not restless.

3. The two idiots in front of us. That one idiot who thought it was okay to mosh into a kid even though he was not in a mosh pit. What the hell was his problem? I hate stupids. And the fact that he had piercings when he was such a jerk and obviously not a rocker, per say, just made me even angrier.

4. The girl of the two idiots who managed to retrieve her slipper. That was unfortunate. Beetchie and I were really hoping she lost it forever under the bleacher set up.

5. Why didn't we get Franz Ferdinand as the support act? It's not that Kaiser Chiefs were by any means horrid but I'm not a huge fan and would have much preferred FF.

6. That strange song Green Day performed that no one knew and weren't really receptive too. That was just awful.

7. Mike gave a bass to the make-shift bassist. WTF! That should have been me! That kid was really loving himself too on stage. What a brave, obnoxious little ass he was.

8. "21 Guns". I really don't like that song and I don't know why it's so damned popular.

The Highlights:

1. The many Green Day antics. They blessed Trevor, this little kid who they totally effed with and misdirected on stage numerous times. They put together a make-shift band, and kicked many people off their stage with a solid swift boot to the asses.

2. When Billie Joe brought up his make-shift guitarist to the stage and proceeded to plant a kiss on her, that was freakin' hilarious, even more so due to the fact that she was desperately trying to get away from him. Ahahahahahaha.

3. Tre Cool slapped that make shift drummer in the back of the head for trying to fancy up the drumbeat too much. That was not the only slap he got - there was also some tapping of drumsticks on his head. Greatness.

4. Having Beetchie there. This was her first MSG show and her first time seeing Green Day as well. And despite being persecuted for wanting to see them, we both agree that eff everyone else - Green Day were amazing! Also, I know she's been going through a rough time of it lately with dastardly school things that unfortunately is affecting everyone and giving her much stress, but I'm glad she got to go out for a bit to do something she really wanted to do.

5. The stage show. Their production and stage set up was fantastic. The lights, the videos, every time a new song was played, there was a new set up for that, the colours, the sound and the pyrotechnics! When the flames went up, I could feel the heat from where we were. We had decent seats too (Section 10, Row L, seats 5 & 6), so we could see it all! Amazing.





6. Tre Cool - still funny and nuts as ever.





7. Billie Joe - mooning us still after all these years, and still having the greatest time laughing at himself and others.





8. Mike Dirnt - I went through love for all members of GD starting with Tre, then loving Billie and these days and for the past few years, loving Mike the most. It's the bassist stance I love most but he's got the true rocker as well. The hair, the sideburns, the sad eyebrows, the tattoos, the sleeveless shirts and did I mention the bassist stance? When he came out with the pink ears and pink tail for "King For a Day", I was swooning. It was so cute! Awww, I'm only sorry I didn't get a picture because my camera went kaput on the battery life. At least I got him in full bassist stance under the skull-infused disco ball.



Best Performances of the Evening:

1. "King for a Day". That was probably the number 1 highlight for me. All of a sudden they were all dressed up in costumes - Mike with his pink ears and pink tail, Billie Joe with a pink feather boa, that other guitarist in a pirate's hat, the saxophone player in something and Tre in something else I can't quite remember. They had so much fun playing that song and then into Shout. Everything was nuts at that point and it made me love how great a time they were having on stage and doing what they do best: putting on a hectic, crazy fun show where they could do whatever they wanted, and truly enjoy life.

2. "Jesus of Suburbia". Ah yes, I really wanted them to play all 9 glorious minutes of this and would have been sorely disappointed had they not being that they've been playing it almost every show this tour, if not all. Save when that girl messed up "Dearly Beloved", it was as awesome as I expected it to be.

3. "Welcome to Paradise".

4. "F.O.D." I think I was the only one who screamed "YEAH!" when Billie Joe asked if they should play this. I love that damned song.

Just a few notes on Kaiser Chiefs, as I said before, they weren't horrible but it was a bit annoying I could not understand a thing Ricky Wilson was singing thanks to poor sound and while never a fan of this band, they weren't horrible plus they played "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" which is a song I actually like, so that was cool of them.



The Kaiser Chiefs at Madison Square Garden 7/28/2009 Set List:

1. Never Miss a Beat
2. Everyday I Love You Less and Less
3. Ruby
4. Can't Say What I Mean
5. I Predict A Riot
6. You Want History
7. Take My Temperature
8. Oh My God

And now for some Record Keeping:

Those Who Attended GD with Or 2 -

Beetchie

Currently listening to: "Once Around The Block" by Badly Drawn Boy.

Speak No Ill of the Spam

Sales of Spam---that much maligned meat---are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.
Spam's maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong sales of Spam in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14 percent. According to sales information coming from Hormel, provided by The Nielsen Co., Spam sales were up 10.6 percent in the 12-week period ending May 3, compared to last year.
Kimberly Quan, a stay-at-home mom of three who lives just outside San Francisco, has been feeding her family more Spam in the last six months as she tries to make her food budget go further. ... Quan just bought a couple more cans of Spam on sale and some ramen, the instant noodle dish long a staple on college campuses. Her food and gas budgets are together, so she's had to cut back on food spending while the cost of gas increases. Her favorite Spam meal? Spam and macaroni and cheese.

- the above text was taken from a news article I read last week. I do not recall the source.

Just as spam saved the troops in WWII, so will spam save us during the recession! My favourite use of spam (while spam with mac. and cheese is goo'd times) is the H1 mix with spaghetti. The same may be applied to vienna sausages, another staple I will be ingesting in the coming months.
People, stop being down with spam! It's salty 'fake' meat. What's not to love?!

Currently listening to: "Time Honoured Tradition" by Kaiser Chiefs. Yeah, TD5 I'm not really loving them after being harrassed by various sources to listen including yourself. I feel they might annoy me and not be able to make a regular rotation but if you were to provide me with their albums I would gladly accept. Also, this song does tend to crack me up for reasons beyond my comprehension. Actually, it's kind of sad for me to listen to it right now.

Or 2's The Famous London (B)log - DAY 1.5

Chapter 1: 7 PM to 7 AM (No no, this isn't 24)

The flight to London on the 15th messed up this HOchie and company big time. NY time was 7 PM when we departed and arrival at Heathrow was 7 AM on November 16th. What messed with the head was the fact that the head was still in NY time @ 2 AM November 16th. As you can tell, I'm still very much confused and incoherent.

I have to say though that Virgin Atlantic's got some bad-assed plane gear. The in-flight entertainment is so fun. I got to watch this UK comedy series called Peepshow which I liked but like most British comedies, it was painful to watch sometimes. I got to listen in full to albums that I've been meaning to preview for some while and walked away with an appreciation for Arctic Monkeys. The hype surrounding them is still too great but really, it isn't bad at all. I really couldn't get through The Kaiser Chiefs though.

Another point of interest worth mentioning was my very gay flight attendant. He was adorable.

The boring details of that day after getting into London involved renting a phone, taking a rail to the hotel (and by the way, a lot of the London Outskirts looks like Queens. That alone is really scary. Also, taggers in England got nothing on NY Taggers - when you do graffiti, do it right!) and trying to find our hotel.
Things didn't start out THAT fantastic. We got stuck in the elevator at the hotel and I almost broke my foot when I missed a step, with suitcase in hand. My foot went under itself in the worst way possible. I guess it wouldn't be a London trip if I didn't fall at some point (ahaha, London Trip? Get it? Ahhh. I slay myself) but it was scary because it's shocking I didn't actually break it off. This was an ongoing concern of mine during the entire trip actually. I always felt that I was going to break my foot either on some cobblestones or spiral staircases.

The rest of the day was spent walking around like zombies as Battler and I went on an almost fruitless search for flip flops. After getting lost for 3 + hours, I finally remembered that I could have saved us the aches since I knew fully well that flip flops are not in use in England. Heh. Oh well. Not only could I have saved us the achey feet but I could have saved myself some grief:



The only real thing of interest I found in the tuck shop other than my childhood in cadbury chocolate was Fido. That's right, Fido is still rockin' the 7UP can in London:



That night after some fish and chips (not in newspaper much to my dismay) at the corner pub "The Pride of Paddington", Battler, Char Kar and I knocked out for the night.

Wow, what a fairly boring day. It's a sad thing when the flight was the most exciting event.