Green Day continue through the “Jesus of Suburbia” suite, “Holiday,” and “Are We the Waiting” before throwing in “Longview” for old times’ sake, which leads into “Brain Stew” and “Basket Case” for the only stretch when Bullet sounds really alive. “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda!” Armstrong rails at the disc’s outset, and the crowd of 65,000-plus go completely bonkers. That’s what the band's new CD/DVD set Bullet in a Bible documents, recounting their show this past summer at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes. But American Idiot’s rage seems more like artifice now, especially when it’s performed from a stage of Stonesian proportions. In theory Green Day’s still singing to those suburban mudslingers, the ’90s kids who grew up to find only apathy, fear, and nothingness beyond the fast food wrappers and blaring televisions. “September” itself was the soggiest, a melodramatic wallow in the vein of “Good Riddance.” And it contained none of the danger and fun that Billie Joe Armstrong had congratulated himself for bringing back to rock’n’roll during his acceptance of the Best Rock Album Grammy for American Idiot. The record still had its thematic scope, and subtitled set pieces, but with the singles played to death it was starting to sound really, really flat. But by “Wake Me Up When September Ends” it was unclear what Idiot was supposed to mean in the first place. And “Holiday” had its “HEY!”s and “AMEN!”s. Sure, there was the thrilling riff and yawp of the album’s title track, way back when. More than a decade later, their superstardom is a mascara-clouded mess of sloganeering, middle age, and punk rock lip service, and the firebrand moments in 2004’s American Idiot diminish with every millionth unit shifted. Back then they smirked at the world from underneath green hair dye, and goaded suburban children into gleeful mud fights.
Over the past two years, Green Day have reclaimed their Dookie platform of yore.
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