Green Day Rakes In The Green Backs

But really, the security guard was eyeing my belt. He actually stood back, put a few fingers on his chin and said "Hmmm… I don't know." I was amazed. The belt didn't have spikes, it didn't have chains, it just had small holes in it which were finished with metal eye-lets. You know – the kind of metal eyelets that are on just about any pair of shoes.

I passed the belt inspection only to have the key-fob on my key ring looked at. "I need that to get in to work" I said. " You know… work." Emphasis to imply that I have better things to do than stir up shit at a concert or even be overly anal about a man in his 30s trying to take his niece to see Green Day.

So this is how it was gonna be.

Green Day. Well you know, they've got that popular thing going on, but I've mostly ignored them ever since they crossed over from their punk rock roots to the MTV frat-boy beer swilling post-grunge 1990s. I checked them out when they were first in Maximum Rock N Roll, but over all, I was never really impressed. Their brand of music was certainly an evolution of college alterna-punk such as The Descendants, NoFX, Bad Religion, 7 Seconds, etc etc – but it was all so very formulaic and… nice.

But my niece really likes them, and I'm all about corrupting the innocent, so I had to be in on this one.

We sat in the back. The very back. My sister had picked up tickets kind of late in the game. We were directly opposite the stage at the very top of the seats – something we'd joked about happening but were still shocked when the joke became a reality. But c'mon – these tickets were $35 (and a cool $50 after TicketBastard charges). Shouldn't we get… better? Yes? No? I guess I'm too used to paying $5 to see bands over at The Melody or Radio Radio.

So Billy and the boys lose more points from their punk rock cred by having huge ticket prices. But what can you expect? Over ten years of mainstream success doesn't come cheap. I mean - someone has to pay for the huge banners behind the stage... the bank of flashing lights that spelled out the bands name (as if we didn't know)... the explosions... the jets of flame... the showers of sparks... more explosions... floor drenching confetti... even more explosions...

Before I type the words "sell out" (since the band still calls themselves "punk rock", I can measure them by their own yard stick), you should probably go and read some positive reviews of the show from Indy Star and Indianapolis Music.Net.