Photograph by C. Taylor Crothers for Rolling Stone
With Green Day in the throes of their 21st Century Breakdown tour, Rolling Stone caught up backstage with Billie Joe Armstrong, Tré Cool and Mike Dirnt before their concert at Philadelphia’s Spectrum for an exclusive look at the trio’s latest and craziest tour yet. After years on the road, Green Day still know how to have a good time, stocking their area backstage with Rock Band and tequila. “I get more fun where I drink tequila,” Cool tells RS. The band kicked off their tour with a July 3rd concert in Seattle, with the band performing material from Breakdown, their most complex and ambitious album to date.
Go backstage with Green Day in an exclusive photos gallery.
“It’s a marathon every night,” Armstrong says of the band’s concerts. “I know people say they put 100 percent into their shows, but I think we go beyond the 100 percent a lot of bands actually put into their shows.” On this tour, Green Day have kept up their tradition of breaking down the wall between performer and fan, often inviting members of the audience to join them onstage. In Philadelphia, one lucky girl in the crowd got to share vocals with Armstrong on American Idiot’s “Holiday,” while one dude in the crowd who correctly identifies “Jesus of Suburbia” was in the key of C-sharp is handed a guitar and joins the band in their performance of the song.
After showcasing the 21st Century Breakdown material, bassist Mike Dirnt relishes in digging into the trio’s older catalog like “Longview” and “Welcome to Paradise.” “I get excited. Some of the old stuff, when you’re only playing three chords, you can go ballistic,” Dirnt tells RS about shifting from the complex Idiot/Bre...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily