Live Review: Green Day – Manchester

Green Day Brings Sunshine, Rain, and Rainbows to Their Record Manchester Show

“Tonight is not about a party, tonight is a celebration!” Billie Joe Armstrong tells the 50,000-strong crowd at the Old Trafford cricket ground on Friday evening. He’s not wrong either; the Saviors tour not only celebrates their latest album but also pays tribute to Green Day’s two biggest albums, Dookie and the juggernaut which is American Idiot. It’s taken 20 years for tonight to happen, and the Green Day hardcore are ready to hear both albums in full.

If you’ve seen the band before, you’ll know what to expect as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody blares out of the stadium speakers before the iconic pink rabbit suit appears on stage for the Ramones’ classicBlitzkrieg Bop. Rather than diving straight into Dookie, the band opens with The American Dream is Killing Me, getting the crowd moving in all directions. Up next is Dookie, the band's 1994 breakout album that puts them in the limelight.

With hits such as Basket Case, Welcome To Paradise, and Longview, the album is set for some massive singalong moments, which is exactly what most of the crowd does. However, it is clear from where I am standing that, aside from those big numbers, many people in the crowd don’t know much else off the album. That doesn’t stop the fans from screaming every lyric back louder to make up for it. It only takes Billie Joe two songs before he leads his trademark ‘Ayy-Ohh’ chants with the crowd, pausing for a minute mid-song to check that a fan is okay before continuing exactly where they left off, as only a band as tightly knit as Green Day can.

As they near the end of the album, the stage goes dark (as dark as it gets in late June, around the summer solstice) and Tré Cool appears in a leopard print dressing gown to sing the album’s final song, All By Myself, providing a moment of humour which much to the fans’ delight. Before breaking intoAmerican Idiot, Green Day plays a short six-song hit compilation of both classics and newer material.

Having played Dookie in full 10 years ago at Reading and Leeds festivals, the next part of the night is unknown territory for the fans. On a personal note, I’ve been waiting 20 years for this moment, and most people at the show have too. The crowd comes to life through the album's first half with huge singalong moments for Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and of course the title track American Idiot.

As the band closes their set with the Saviors song Bobby Sox and the singalong classic Good Riddance, it’s clear that Green Day has no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon. With huge amounts of pyro and fireworks for the show and fans chanting along to their songs, this has been a celebration of the last 30 years of Green Day as a band and their enormous success in the industry.