Categories : Featured Review, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3.5/5 Released: November 15, 2005 Reviewer: David Coats |
Okay – hands up if in 1994 you thought of all the marquee bands of the day that Green Day would be the most popular and successful of them all at the end of 2005. Me either. All it took, it turns out, was a Republican White House, and maybe the most successful political pop-punk record of recent years, 2004’s American Idiot, for Green Day to re-emerge as one of music’s most relevant bands. CD/DVD package Bullet In A Bible, recorded in England at Milton Keynes in front of 60 000 fans, proves the reason for Green Day’s success: they, like perhaps no other rock band of the moment, have tapped into the consciousness of western world youth.
The songs, straightforward and purposeful, are strong, and crowd-pleasing. This blistering show opens with American Idiot before moving into the dramatically reciprocal, five-part Jesus Of Suburbia. While there are a few hits from past records (Minority, Longview), this is ultimately a showcase of the best of the American Idiot record, and the reactions of the audience (who know and sing along to every word) certainly suggest that’s what they came for. Through behind-the-scenes interviews and the sheer intensity of their performance, it’s obvious the songs mean as much to the band as they do to the fans. The CD is better than the DVD in that it cuts out most of the band’s over-the-top on-stage antics, but for his annoying shouts of “Englaaaaand!†Billie Joe Armstrong has the crowd in the palm of his hand.
The show is big, intense, and communal, and while apart from their cover of Shout the band make little attempt to improvise or deviate from the studio arrangements of these songs, the only real flaw is closer Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), performed at half-tempo and on electric guitar. However, the likes of Wake Me Up When September Ends and Boulevard Of Broken Dreams sound as tight and strong as ever. Bullet In A Bible is the portrait of a veteran band at their peak, who may never be at this level again. But then again, we said that once before…
