Green Day Bust Out New Tunes, Melt Faces At Tiki Bar In Costa Mesa

Cameras and Cell phones were not allowed. Fortunately, I'm a skilled artist.

On Tuesday, the news spread  like wildfire that Green Day was going to be playing a benefit show for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Thursday at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa.

I was super excited for one, because I’ve loved Green Day since I was little (well, little-r), and two, the venue is five minutes from my house. I’ve actually never been able to go to a Green Day show before (I know, I’m a bad human being), so the chance to not only finally see them, but to see them up close, was an experience I could not pass up.

Tickets for the show went on sale online at 1pm yesterday, and all 250 tickets were gone in a matter of SECONDS. Even I got shut out from being able to buy one, but got extremely lucky when a friend happened to have an extra ticket, and got to experience over two hours of awesomeness that included a huge chunk of new music (new album soon?), old favorites and epic sweatiness.

After two hours of waiting standing around and waiting, Green Day finally hit the stage at around 10pm.

When the show was announced, the band promised a stripped down setup with a set full of classics, but instead the excited audience was treated to over an hour of brand new Green Day songs! The band opened with new song “Nuclear Family”, and when it finished, Billie Joe decided that he wanted to play it again.  He put it up to vote with the crowd then said “F–k it, it’s not a democracy!” and tore in the song with even more vigor than the first go around.

We were hit with a barrage of new song one after another (18 all together), and they were everything you would love about Green Day songs: punk rock simplicity, great hooks, and plenty of “whoa-ohs” to sing along with. Billie Joe kept track of songs with a giant notepad, and  you can look forward to songs in the future named “Oh, Love”, “Carpe Diem”, and “Crushing Bastards.” They also included covers of Ozzy’s “Goodbye to Romance”, and Foxboro Hot Tub’s (Green Day’s side project) “It’s F–k Time.”  Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt were on fire with stage banter; with Billie Joe riffing about how Train’s “Soul Sister” should be used for tampon ads, and Dirnt exclaiming, “It’s cougar time! It’s Krueger time!” before performing the Foxboro Hot Tubs song a second time.

But the band wasnt over yet, as they next ripped into a set of favorites starting with “Welcome to Paradise.”  The crowd before was enthusiastically taking in the new music, but relatively still.  When they starting the opening guitar riff of the Dookie classic, the crowd went off: a moshpit instantly opened up in the middle of the floor, and a couple of crowd surfers made their rounds. Other hits that followed: “J.A.R”, “Burnout”, “Hitchin A Ride”, “Murder City”, “St. Jimmy”, before ending with “Minority.”

The show ended around 12:30 am, and I left the show covered in sweat (most of it not mine), ears ringing, with a huge grin on my face. And may I add…this concert was recorded, so if you were not one of the lucky people in attendance last night, you may see it in the future.

The set list (thanks to setlist.fm)

1. Nuclear Family
2. Stay The Night
3. Too Young To Die
4. Old Love
5. Carpe Diem
6. Crushing Bastards
7. Little Boy Named Train
8. Trouble Maker
9. Sweet 16
10. Wow, That’s Loud
11. 8th Avenue Serenade
12. Ashley
13. Gabriella
14. Wild One
15. It’s F–k Time (Foxboro Hot Tubs cover)
16. Stray Heart
17. Last Gang In Town

Encore:

1. Amy
2. Goodbye to Romance  (Ozzy Osbourne cover)
3. Welcome To Paradise
4. Burnout
5. Murder City
6. J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)
7. Only Of You
8. Hitchin’ a Ride
9. St. Jimmy
10. Minority