This show was like 10 times better than the Berlin show, and that was already a great show, but the crowd in Cologne was a lot more like a punk show than the other one, which is usually a good thing, but there was also a lot of shoving and pushing from all sites in the first couple of rows where I was standing, it was very annoying, and shortly behind me was the real mosh pit going on.
After I had made it inside, I ended up standing in the 3rd row, right in the middle in front of Tre's drumkit, but also in front of Billie's spot, cause the stage was not just much closer than in Berlin, also Billie and Mike stood closer together. Also even if the building was bigger than in Berlin (it holds about 1000 people), it was made smaller for the occasion, so it had about the same size as the Kesselhaus (which holds like 600 people), in the end we were about 700 people ready to fucking rock.
And so were the guys. The minute they hit the stage you could feel there enthusiasm, they were so happy to be there, you could feel they had completely let loose now and where back on the live track, as Billie yelled "We are Green Day and we are fucking back!"
And how. It was one of those shows where band and crowd hype each other up and form a great close relationship, which is just an amazing experience. But because there was so much pushing, and of course the people from behind pushed the most, unfortunately it wasn't all fun. At the very beginning I was really squeezed from all 4 sides, so much that at one point I got levitated when the people around me jumped, and I couldn't move at all, I was stuck with one arm up, and the other one down. Also there were a lot of tall people around me, and after a couple of minutes I was moved over to the right a lil, and ended up right in front of a tall guy, thank god I was pushed a lil further to the right then, and in the end I spent the rest of the show in the 2nd row but with one hand at the barrier. Also cause of all the pushing I ended up standing almost in front of Mike again, but still right in front of Tre, and still next to Billie, almost in front of him. Also there was a speaker right next to Mike in front of me and Billie climbed up there a couple of times.
And naturally with all that pushing I had a hard time taking pictures this time, it took me quite some time till I was able to reach my camera at all, and when I finally did, I had to try to find moments when people where lil less pushy, but it was almost impossible
These where my first 2 attempts of catching Billie when I was still standing closer to him, with more or less successful results
And as I was standing closer to him too now, I wanted to get a good pic of Jason as well...
... didnt come out that great, but he looked at me twice and one of those times he even smiled at me.
Some what during 21st Century Breakdown (first song) Tre looked at me and recognized me, he made a nod at me and said hey and I said hey back. And as was standing right in his point of view, he was looking into my direction quite couple of times, usually making his infamous faces at me which I responded either with the same faces or some other spontaneous reaction, one of the first things he did was moving his eyebrows up and down so I did it back at him, and it was really fun making faces with him together. The funniest part was during Basket Case (I believe it was), where we sung a short part together and at one point he was making so many faces at me and so fast, that I cant even remember them all, and I just responded as fast and spontaneous as I could, I remember one time he was blinking a lot, and I remember winking at him when he did something, then once he was sort of pouting and shaking his head, which was really funny and cute to look at, and at the end he stuck his tongue out and I did too.
And just when I had ended up in front of Mike again I thought, if Im already standing here again, and he will surely recognize me too, might as well try to see if I can get his attention as well, so I kept looking at him and indeed just a couple of seconds later he looked back at me, and just like Tre he made a nod into my direction and then said something I couldn't understand, one second later when he was throwing something I realized he had asked "Want a pick?", so I quickly tried to catch it, but I missed it, my arm was a lil too short, and I dont know if someone else around me snatched it, cause naturally they where trying to get it too, or if it fell to the floor, but I think it landed on the floor. And Mike was like "Ah, so close! So close!", making a gesture with his fingers to it, and even if I didn't make it to catch it, I didn't even care cause I just found it so nice of him that he recognized me and wanted to give me something and did this lil gesture when I didn't catch it.
Here's another attempt at Billie, failed terribly
During Before the Lobotomy, Billie made a short pause during the song, and there was some guy near on the right of me who was shouting the next line "Whiskey shots and cheap cigarettes" already and he kept shouting it and wanted Billie to keep going, but Billie and the other guys where so surprised, almost in awe, that there was someone who already knew the song so well, that he was just watching him for a while, and the guy kept yelling it over and over so Billie ended up waving him up to sing the line on stage.
When the intro of Lil Girl was playing, Billie leaned on the front of Jason Freeses keyboard, making dramatic, theatrical faces and gestures to the music while smoking a cigarette, and all of a sudden Tre jumped up and ran over too, and standing at the left side of it he pretended Jasons keyboard was a huge hand organ he was playing, and he was making faces and big eyes, it was really funny, when he ran back behind his drums Mike was laughing his ass off.
After the new album part the band came back on stage and played American Idiot just like in Berlin (and they ended up playing the exact same set list). If the crowd was already enthusiastic before, now with the old songs that everyone could sing along it was even more, and so Billie let us sing the beginning of song alone to the first chorus line. During the guitar solo part he was singing a different song, unfortunately I forgot which one it was, and when the song was over Billie went to the mic and and said "Boom!", throwing his arms up to imitating an explosion, then he did the same thing again saying "Splash!" and a third time saying "Scheiße!" (=shit). He went on doing his his usual "ey oh" and after he did it twice he went on "ey-ey-ey oh" and then spontaneously added "Daylight come and me wanna go home!" after he realized that his "ey oh" sounded just like in that song and everyone laughed.
There was one point where Billie was burping again, but without drinking a beer before this time, I'm not quite sure but I think it might have been during JOS.
Here I was trying to get a pic of Tre, but someone ended up pushing me to the left while doing it so I fucked it up
It was at the beginning of the next song Longview where the first person was crowd surfing to the front, and Billie ended up pulling him out from the crowd himself and up on stage where he handed him his microphone and the guy ended up singing the first part of the song with Billie playing on the guitar. He turned out to be a pretty good singer actually, his voice even sounded familiar to Billies. Billie took over again after the first chorus, but he fucked up the line so he tried it again with the next, fucked it up a second time, laughed and was like "Shit!", made a third attempt and failed a 3rd time, and went "Fuck I can't do it" and he kept laughing and then even had to turn around to sort himself and it was the last line before the second chorus when he finally made it to pull himself together again and could get back into the song, it was a really great and funny moment, he tried over and over but the more he tried the more he had to laugh and the more he screwed up.
During King for a Day Billie jumped on the speaker in front of me and spent a while on there, which gave me a very nice point of view during the part where he moves his hips back and forth very fast, also he sang "I feel good" during this song, and during the part where Billie sometimes sings "Always look on the bright sight of life", a part of the crowd spontaneously started singing it themselves, and then we all joined in and then Tre and the other guys all started joining it as well and we sang it for quite a while. Then came "You've been so good to me" and when Tre did his "Yeah yeah yeah" bit, he walked in front of his drums and he sang as energetic as possible and at the end he turned sideways and imitated giving a blow job to his microphone, classic Tre.
When the going softer part came, Billie sat down on the speaker and brought out his devil ears (something he didn't have the last show), and some people in the crowd started yelling "Get down!" over and over, so we all had to get down to the floor again, but of course it was pretty tricky in this pushy and squeezed crowd, in fact the annoying lil bitch right in front of me was so blunt and actually sat down on my lap, I tried to get her off me but couldn't as she was holding on to the barrier with both hands and I had just one hand on, so I had to get up again cause she was getting heavy, and some other people got up again too cause they had trouble, but Billie and the guys gestured us to get down again and all in all it took us surely like 3 attempts till we finally got it done more or less.
And I dont remember if it was towards the end of King for a Day or during Minority, when Billie was drinking beer again, as fast and as much as he could, this time he didn't burp though, he took it off while it was still running out and it was running down his chin and his shirt and smiled, and it was one of his very cute ones.
And then came already the last song Minority again, and there was a very great moment where the two Jasons met somewhat in the middle and where doing a lil dance together, they walked like 3 steps
towards each other and did a kick, then did the same backwards with a
step and they kept doing that for a while and they really enjoyed
themselves and it was really a pleasure to watch them. During the Introduction part Billie dragged out Tres name a lil bit, kinda like "Coo-ooo-ool", and he seemed to have found it funny how he had said it, cause when he walked over to Mike he imitated himself and laughed. And when Billie did the extra long ey-oh, Tre looked at me
again and he seemed to want see if I would be able to hold it
that long cause he didn't look away, so naturally I tried my
best, unfortunately I didn't make it to the end, but not
actually because I didn't have enough breath, some guys had chosen right this
moment to crowd surf and right over me so I had to duck and stop.
All in all it was a fucking great show, the guys were fucking amazing, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves, at one point Billie yelled "I fucking love you guys", and when some girls to my right yelled "I love you Mike" he responed with "I love you too, I love you, love you so much", and one time towards the end Tre was doing those blowing kisses to the crowd Billie usually does.
It was one of those infamous Green Day shows where you could feel the love between band and crowd and that totally made up for the fact that the crowd was so shitty that night.
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