"Why are there no clouds in the sky?"

"Because God wants to watch his favorite band again."
-Tre Cool


Best Buy is the Devil. And by "Devil" I mean Great. I got a $50 Best Buy gift certificate from the Animal Hospital for having perfect attendance in the last quarter which was awesome, until I went to spend it today. As I mentioned in my last post I was going to buy the Green Day CD/DVD live album (more on that later) and I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to use it. There had been a few other CDs and DVDs I'd had in mind after I scouted it out with the boys on Friday night so I pretty much had in mind how I was going to spend it. But alas I'm a weak weak man... Strolling through the store my plan of getting one DVD and two CDs was thrown out faster than you can imagine. I was as excited as Michael Jackson at Disney World.

Yeah, so those preplanned numbers doubled... but hey I got some really good deals (god I sound like a girl after going shoe shopping). I bet there's a conspiracy and the hospital got the gift certificates at a discount rate because of people like me who always spend more than we intend to there, bastards... I got Rounders (I've lived entirely too long without owning that movie), Batman Begins (I haven't seen it yet, but let's be honest, I'm going to love it) Franz Ferdinand's new CD "You Could Have it So Much Better" (Very good album... not as good as Chris had hyped it, but maybe it'll grow on me) Tony Hawk's American Wasteland CD (A compilation of random punk songs (I usually love punk comps) that was so very disappointing... except that I only paid like $10 for it) All American Rejects' new album "Move Along" (really solid album, I'm starting to think I like these guys more than I think I do) and the afore mentioned Green Day CD.

I've listened to all the albums at work (hence the short reviews above) but I only had a chance to watch about half the Green Day DVD. And from what I've seen the video is fantastic. I should preface the rest of this by saying that Green Day is a close second to Pearl Jam as my favorite band of all times (they gained a lot of ground lately but I bet that's mostly because Pearl Jam have been mostly inactive the last few years). As they said the last time I saw them in concert (and on the video) they've been a band for 16 years and I've been a huge fan of theirs for the last 11. (I still remember when Chris Fite-Wassylak had me listen to Kerplunk maybe 4 months before Dookie came out and I fell in love with it. He and I bought Dookie the day it came out in Italy and my birthday present in '94 was an I.O.U. for Insomniac and a bus ticket to go downtown and buy it when it came out the next month.) And while I've always loved Pearl Jam's music more I've never felt like their songs could speak for me the way most of Green Day's can (with the obvious exceptions of "Wishlist" and "Yellow Ledbetter" the later of them being my favorite song of all time).

Ok so that wasn't a prefix so much as a comparison paper... but whatever. Anyway back to the CD/DVD. At first I really didn't like the title of the album, "Bullet in a Bible," figuring it was a dig at all the Bible thumping rednecks they lambast on "American Idiot." And while I agree with most of their sentiments and think that the religious right has ruined the ideals of the Republican party, I thought the title was vulgar, disrespectful and ill conceived. But if you watch the DVD you see them go to a WWII museum in the UK (where the concert is filmed) where they see an exhibit that has a shrapnel torn uniform and the soldiers Bible, literally with a bullet in it. It's not an anti religion or anti redneck title, like Billie Joe says over the opening chords of "Holiday" during the show (I think he also said it the last time I saw them too but I don't remember) "This song isn't anti-American, it isn't anti-Bush, it's anti-war!" And that made it much easier to get behind, and even agree with.

What delighted me was how "Bullet in a Bible" does an amazing job of capturing them live. They're one of the best live shows I've ever seen (yes that is a requirement to being one of my favorite bands), I've seen them 4 times and just been blown away every time. They have so much energy, Billie Joe's like a Jack Russell Terrier running back and forth behind a chainlink fence barking at everything he sees, Mike Dirnt stands like a statue of a rock god pounding away at his bass and Tre Cool is like a chimpanzee glued to his drum kit. They sound great live, but it's rough enough and they make enough mistakes that it makes you belief they don't have any backing tracks (I don't think they do but so many bands do these days you can never be 100% sure). More than any other band I've seen they get the crowd involved, more than just singing along (which since they play almost all of their popular songs everyone can do) they get the crowd chanting with fists pumping in the air, they have the crowd count off a handful of songs (most noticeably and frequently in "Hitching a Ride") and they engage the crowd in as many call and responses as Run-DMC.

They make for an awesome and unique concert experience that I'll see them every chance I get. And this video some how captures all of that with some mediocre to good interviews spliced in (with the part of them in the museum done really really well). To sum up this lovefest for Green Day I have to say, if you haven't seen them live... I pity you, go see them, then get this video. Or if you can't afford to see them or don't have the chance spend the $15 on this CD and you might understand.

Well, I didn't mean to spend so much time on just that topic... but whatever if you're reading this to see how I think, I think about music more than is probably healthy. I had planned on writing about the wonders of having a dog (Toby's in town) and a few other stories to (try to) amuse you with... But the post's too long already and it's getting to be about time for me to leave.


1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours
-B