I arrived at the venue at about 5.30pm, which turned out to be in an inner court yard with of a lot of small club, restaurants and even a supermarket, and there was so much it was a lil confusing. Just walking around there looking for the entrance, I end up seeing 2 busses and vans with blackened windows and think, well that's gotta be the back entrance then. But after I asked a woman in the front of the venue for the way, turns out I was on the right way after all, which meant the guys had there vehicles parked almost right next to the entrance.
So I walked back and getting closer I could hear Tre drumming inside what sounded kinda like The Saints are coming, before that I had already heard him briefly playing Know your Enemy, and then I heard Billie doing voice warm up exercises, the guys where right in the midst of there sound check. Aside from some new songs they played American Idiot, When I come around and St. Jimmy.
The doors where supposed to open at 8 pm, but after a break the guys where having another sound check about 20 min. before until maybe 10 min. past 8, so the whole thing delayed. At the same time of the 2nd sound check there where crew members carrying food and other things through one of the side entrances, which gave us the possibilty to have brief looks inside right at the stage, and I could see Jason (White), Mike and Tre a couple of times.
When they finally let us inside it must have been about 8.45 pm, and as we were all winners from various contests (I won over the Idiot Club) and there were no tickets they where only letting in like 30 people at at time. I was in the 2nd batch they let in, and we had to go to a counter next to the door, show the email we got sent and our ID to some women who had our names on guest lists, then we got pink wrist bands, and after security check and giving our coats to the cloak room ladies we had to line up in front of another door and wait for another couple of minutes before they finally let us in.
Seeing as everyone was sprinting off and there was so less people and still a good chance to make the first row I ran as well, and I actually made it to the barrier, right in front of where Mike was going to stand later.
And then we had to wait. As they were only letting in a couple of people at a time, it took quite some time till the room was filled, after maybe like 30 min. the room wasn't even filled half way yet and we started to realize the show was likely to start not before 10 pm. When it was maybe like 9.45 and we were already pretty bored, I was making jokes with the girls next to me how the guys could enter, like unexpectedly jumping of the balconies onto the stage, and a couple minutes later a guy from the crew was talking to a girl 2nd to the left he had recognized, I was watching them with the other girls when I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that a few more people where walking over from the right, so I turn my head back to the front - and saw Billie Joe walking past right in front of me! He had appeared out of the middle of nowhere, squeezing himself through a small space between stage and some black wall thing, so unexpectedly that the people on my side only realized he was there when he had already walked half the way to the other side. He was shaking hands, saying Hi and How's it going, naturally I tried to get a hold of his hand too, but missed it, the girls to my left and right where luckier, they said later his hand was pretty cold. When he was a lil to the right of me he climbed up on the barrier so people could see him better and take pics, and I got this very nice close-up out of it
And here he is after he climbed down again, if you look closely in the back, behind his head you see the small space he had squeezed himself through.
It was really a funny and amazing thing to happen, you look around, bored, not paying attention and all of a sudden you have Billie Joe right in front of you and until your brain realized what just happened he's already walked past you, and it gave us something to talk about till the last couple of minutes till the show finally started.
And finally the Show started. They have a new intro music, Rock and Roll Radio, it fits really good.
And then the guys hit the stage. Here's Tre...
... and here's Mike (and also Tre again in the back), I think this was after they had walked up to the front and waved to people and stuff.
And Billie Joe, as you can see, he's using Blue for some of the new songs and he's wearing the Sheriff's star he was already wearing in some recent official pics, seems to be part of his new stage outfit. He also had a hanky in the right back pocket of his pants again, it was white with red polka dots.
They started out with the title track, followed by Know your Enemy and East Jesus. Towards the end of this song Billie played guitar behind his back again briefly, and when he took it down he knocked his microphone to the floor cause he was standing too close to it, and everyone was laughing and clapping as he just stood there for a couple of seconds looking down at it laughing which was kinda cute, then he picked it up, brushed it off gently in a my-poor-lil-microphone sort of way, gave it a kiss and laughed. It was one of those classic moments that make Billie such a great guy cause he doesn't care if he fucks up.
Here's Mike in action...
... and Tre...
... and Jason (with Billie) ...
Another Mikey...
Tre posing for pics during a short break between song
Mike was posing too during breaks a few times, sticking his tongue out, unfortunately I never when I took a pic though.
During the Intro of the song Lil Girl (this one's got to be my favourite of the new songs), that has sort of a dramatical opening, sort of reminded me of french street performers for some reason, Billie was walking around, making dramatic gestures and poses and faces too it in an overacting way, it was very funny to look at
Here I tried to get Jason alone, unfortunately he had his face partly behind the microphone stand right when it took it
After they played the new album (11 songs), they left the stage and came back for 7 more songs, starting with American Idiot, and Billie changed the Do the propaganda line to something about Barrack Obama, but I couldnt really understand what it was exactly as I didn't expect him to sing something different. After the guitar solo part they slowed down and went very quiet, and Billie briefly sang "I feel good" and then said "We haven't been here in a long time. But now where back" and then he said he wanted everybody to dance when they come back and at the end of the song he said "I'm so fucking happy to be here right now!". They went on to play JOS, Longview, She and Basket Case.
The next song was King for a Day, which was, as usual including "You've been so good to me" and "Shout". During "You've been so good", Billie took his beer (which he brought on stage with him when they came back after the first half), drank as fast and as much as he could and burped into his microphone. At the part when there all lying down on the floor Mike and Jason Freese seemed to have a lil space problem cause Mike kinda crashed onto Jason's feet when he dropped himself to the floor, and Billie sang Stand by me and before that something else, I forgot what it was unfortunately, so they ended up lying around there pretty long, I was already wondering why it was going so long this time, and as Billie finally sat up again, the others stayed on the floor, and first he stayed bowed down and kept singing, then he sat up straight and was like "Get down! Come on, get down!" and gestured us down with his hands and wasn't resting until we were all more or less down on the floor, luckily I had the barrier to hold on to cause he kept us down there for like a minute or so before he let us get up again, very slowly of course and they wrapped up the song.
In this pic I tried to get Tre again (or maybe even him together with Mike, can't remember), but unfortunately his face was hidden when I took it, but I got a nice shot of some of Mike's tattoos instead, which are always nice too look at as well
And then came the last song already, Minority
At one point Billie walked over in front of me and once he bowed down to sing at me and seemed to wanna get me too sing as loud as possible, so naturally I tried my best, and I think I did a pretty good job. And during the whole time he was standing there some girls to my right desperately tried to get him to shake there hands, and after he had bowed down to me he finally did it, taking several hands at once, and so I held my hand out too and this time I succeeded, he took my hand at the end and when he pulled it back he briefly closed his forefinger around my fingers leaving me one very happy and proud girl.
After the song was over, Tre got a bunch of drum sticks and threw them into the crowd before he left, he threw them right into the middle and the majority of ppl jumped for it and crashed to the floor, I didn't join in though, I wanted to let the others have the joy of being squashed in a huge human pile on the floor.
Then the lights went back on and some of the roadies started handing out the set lists and I made it to snatch the very last one
And yes, as you can see already on this pic, I got some guitar picks as well, but not from them, more on that now.
After I got a hold of the set list and let some people have a look at it, I hurried to the bar to get some water, I was fucking dehydrated, then I went to get my jacket and went out and joined the lil crowd that watched the crew uploading the trucks, and after a couple of minutes one of the Roadies walked up to me and said Hi and asked my name, and after I told him he said his name was Brian and then he gave me his hand with the guitar picks in it and left, and I was totally surprised by what just had happened seeing as there were so many other girls standing much closer to them and I was rather standing at the side lines.
And then another couple of minutes later Jason Freese came out and was chatting with people, I didn't go over to him though, and he was talking with them for surely like 15 min. or so.
And just a couple of seconds after he went back in I saw that the girls right in front of the trucks had formed a crowd and all seemed very excited, and I was just wondering who of the guys might have come out now as someone said to me "look the drummer is over there!", so naturally I went over, and there he was, Tre, chatting and joking with some girls, and I had actually intended to talk to him too, but then I couldn't think of anything to ask him, so I stood there for a while watching him and when he finally looked at me I said hi, but I didnt make it to say anything else (can you imagine how stupid I felt). So I stood there for another couple of minutes trying to think of something till I decided to just ask him for a pic and see where that takes me, so I got my camera out and asked him and he was like "sure", and a crew member who was standing next to us took it
And that was already everything, he didn't say anything to me, he went back to the other people chatting with them some more, I was a tad disappointed, I had hoped that maybe he would say something to me, but he didn't. I was going to ask him for an autograph as well, but I didnt have a pen and no one around me didn't have one either, but at least I got a pic with him.
But I can tell you, if you thought Tre is funny in interviews or on videos, this is really NOTHING compared to witnessing that live, he fires jokes so fast and unexpectedly, it's incredible, like shortly before he went back in, he looked at the girl next to me in and was like "Wait a minute...", then he walked up to her and took her face and moved it from left to right and looked at her like he was a model scout inspecting her if she was the right person he was looking for, then he let go of her and was like "Yeah, I thought I know you, you look like my Ex-Girlfriend!" and everyone burst out laughing and naturally she was a rather lil embarrassed. And when he went back inside he was like "and now I'm out!", but he stayed in the area of the door, talking to various people, and looking outside from time to time, ironically always right in my direction. and at one point when there were some other girls where watching him and yelling to him, he layed on the ramp of the stage posing for them, and then he turned around showing his ass, I didn't make it to get pics of that though. Then he got up and walked up on stage and after a while he went off again and came out again, and for a second I really thought he was gonna walk up to me, but he went to a girl right in front of me, who had made it to catch 2 of the drumsticks he had thrown, and he had brought her a small card board case for them, he stuck it on them saying "This... belongs... on... there..." and then he went back inside again and kept talking to people in front of the door again, one of them was Jason Freese, and they were standing there and chatting for quite a while, and while I was watching them I noticed somewhat further in the back was Jason White standing with some other people.
And then Tre came out for a 3rd time, he walked almost right past me and naturally I wanted to give it another try and talk to him, but I couldn't think of anything to ask him yet again for shit. And he stayed there couple of minutes talking to some more people who weren't there before, took some pics with them and then he went back inside again with a bunch of other guys standing there when they were in and they closed the doors right behind them, so I decided to leave too now, and just when I walked out of the court yard back to the street the guys' vans and busses drove past me.
