Mexico City, Mexico - Sports Palace, December 4th, 2004
This is how Green Day starts a punk rock show in Mexico City.
Get a guy in a pink bunny suit, drinking a beer, to lead 13,000 youths through the calisthenics choreography of the Village Peoples "YMCA."
Green Day performed their second concert in 6 years in Mexico on Sunday night, and they came back knowing how to please their local fans.
The show was a non-stop, high-energy, pyrotechnic packed explosion of pop-rockpunk, complete with a tribute to the late Johnny Ramone.
Before Green Day took the stage, the U.S. punk band New Found Glory and Mexico's Molotov opened the show.
Then, under the cover of darkness and to the strains of "Also Sprach Zarathurstra," better known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Green Day took the stage, launching into their current hit single and title track for their new album, "American Idiot." Their new album has taken the band from Oakland, Ca., which has been playing together for about 15 years, to new heights of both critical and commercial success, winning them their biggest hit since the 1996 breakthrough album "Dookie."
Green Day composed by singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dint and drummer Tre Cool is known for their power-packed shows, and Friday, there was no doubt that they busted down the house.
The band started the show by tearing through the first songs that form the self-styled "rock opera" of "American Idiot," including "Jesus of Suburbia," "Holiday," "Are You Waiting" and "St. Jimmy."
The crowd sang along to the hits from the band's first hit record, "Dookie," like "Longview" and "Basket Case." But they were just as excited by the new songs they were only learning.
The crowd, mostly 15 to 20 year old boys, never stopped moving, whether bouncing along, shaking their fists in unison, playing calland-response with Armstrong or carrying aloft the continual procession of crowd surfers.
Armstrong had the crowd in his hands throughout the show, leading the pumped up youths in repeated choruses, hosing them down with water guns, and calling fans to come up on stage to form a spontaneous band a routine that has become a cornerstone of their goof-off stage antics.
Armstrong, who introduced himself as "the drunkard" in Spanish during the course of the show, also pulled out a tribute version of The Ramones "Wake Me Up" in honor of guitarist Johnny Ramone, who died in September.
The closed their set with a powerful version of "Minority," before an encore that included a cover of "We Are the Champions" that would have made deceased Queen frontman Freddy Mercury proud.
Get a guy in a pink bunny suit, drinking a beer, to lead 13,000 youths through the calisthenics choreography of the Village Peoples "YMCA."
Green Day performed their second concert in 6 years in Mexico on Sunday night, and they came back knowing how to please their local fans.
The show was a non-stop, high-energy, pyrotechnic packed explosion of pop-rockpunk, complete with a tribute to the late Johnny Ramone.
Before Green Day took the stage, the U.S. punk band New Found Glory and Mexico's Molotov opened the show.
Then, under the cover of darkness and to the strains of "Also Sprach Zarathurstra," better known as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Green Day took the stage, launching into their current hit single and title track for their new album, "American Idiot." Their new album has taken the band from Oakland, Ca., which has been playing together for about 15 years, to new heights of both critical and commercial success, winning them their biggest hit since the 1996 breakthrough album "Dookie."
Green Day composed by singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dint and drummer Tre Cool is known for their power-packed shows, and Friday, there was no doubt that they busted down the house.
The band started the show by tearing through the first songs that form the self-styled "rock opera" of "American Idiot," including "Jesus of Suburbia," "Holiday," "Are You Waiting" and "St. Jimmy."
The crowd sang along to the hits from the band's first hit record, "Dookie," like "Longview" and "Basket Case." But they were just as excited by the new songs they were only learning.
The crowd, mostly 15 to 20 year old boys, never stopped moving, whether bouncing along, shaking their fists in unison, playing calland-response with Armstrong or carrying aloft the continual procession of crowd surfers.
Armstrong had the crowd in his hands throughout the show, leading the pumped up youths in repeated choruses, hosing them down with water guns, and calling fans to come up on stage to form a spontaneous band a routine that has become a cornerstone of their goof-off stage antics.
Armstrong, who introduced himself as "the drunkard" in Spanish during the course of the show, also pulled out a tribute version of The Ramones "Wake Me Up" in honor of guitarist Johnny Ramone, who died in September.
The closed their set with a powerful version of "Minority," before an encore that included a cover of "We Are the Champions" that would have made deceased Queen frontman Freddy Mercury proud.
