After a pandemic-enforced delay of over two years, three legendary pop-punk bands are finally hitting the road together. The Mic's Managing Director Jake Longhurst reviews their spectacular London performance .
Green Day. Fall Out Boy. Weezer. London Olympic stadium. Need I say more?
I will because that’s why you’ve clicked on this article, but still that’s not the point. You already know that this gig was nothing short of spectacular, I’ll just tell you all the reasons why. Let’s start with the weather. It was an utterly glorious day in the East End of London; myself and my good friend Johnny were eating a small meal ahead of standing up for several hours and screaming at a group of people who we’d never met whilst a few different groups of people who we’d never met stood in front of everyone, making loads of noise. When you describe it like that it sounds a little silly really, and honestly it would be, if not for the emotions and adrenaline and feelings of utter bliss live music never fails to create.
Upon entering the stadium through the large access tunnel, the view walking out from under the stand into the main arena was euphoric, seeing a stadium much the same way as sports players would upon entry. There were some lollipop ladies holding the standing traffic at a steady speed to ensure no trampling. This incidentally allowed us to get all of about 10 rows from the front! The first and only support act for the three (three?!?) headliners were the mighty Amyl & The Sniffers, an Aussie punk band who make The Ramones look temperamental. I was really excited to see them, but I was a little let down when the crowd seemed less than receptive to them, not to mention the fact that their intimate and in your face sound was lost to the size of the stadium, taking away from the power it would usually hold.
However, whilst they didn’t quite manage to captivate the audience, the first of the three headliners had everyone in the palms of their hands. Weezer were the band I was least familiar with before the concert, and wasn’t sure if I would even call myself a fan beforehand, but after their set I am fully convinced by them, and am more than happy to call myself a Weezer fan! They played hit after hit, starting with Hash Pipe and Beverly Hills, which got everyone singing along and moving, and then had an incredible six song run to finish with their cover of Metallica’s Enter Sandman, followed by Feels Like Summer, and Island In The Sun which is one of their biggest hits. Then another cover, this time of Africa by Toto, and finally their two biggest songs Say It Ain’t So and the immortal Buddy Holly to close off their brilliant set.
"This truly was a show for the ages, and one I feel privileged to have seen."
After a relatively short wait, the sub-headlining headliners Fall Out Boy arrived on stage and instantly we knew they meant business. Packing flamethrowers galore, and a flamethrowing bass guitar to boot, opening song The Phoenix was a salvo of fire and joy, which had the whole
crowd singing in glorious fashion. The band knew the audience well, playing almost every single one of their biggest hits in a set that spanned almost their entire discography, with songs like
Sugar, We’re Going Down and Dance, Dance being amongst the earliest of their material, whilst My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark and Uma Thurman are much more recent in comparison. Their set up was also very impressive: even excluding the pillars of fire spewing from the stage they had a majestic silhouette of a forest around them and a loose concept video playing behind them on screen that took us through a journey through each song, tying the whole set together very well.
Of course though the headlining band, headliner of headliners, were the talk of the town. Green Day were back in London, and oh boy did they make an entrance. With the classic intro music of Bohemian Rhapsody echoing through the stadium, from not only the speakers but also the 73,000 strong crowd, the atmosphere felt special, and when the band ran out on stage and played the opening chords of American Idiot the crowd erupted into a cacophony of varying emotions, from elation to excitement to straight up tears of joy. By this point, Johnny and I had met a few people in the crowd who we ended up sticking with, and the entire way through the set we were all screaming at each other for varying parts of each song. The next few songs were also highlights of the band's stellar discography, with Holiday, Minority, and Boulevard Of Broken Dreams all coming one after the other. The stage was fairly empty, giving the band maximum room to roam around and fill it up with the sheer volume of stage presence oozing out of every single one of them. With other such songs as 21 Guns and St Jimmy, Green Day can provide a setlist of hits without having to even think about it, and so the entire time the crowd was at maximum volume. They finished up the set with the emotional punch of Wake Me Up When September Ends, followed by the magnum opus Jesus Of Suburbia, and then an encore of Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), with a cover of David Bowie’s All The Young Dudes to round it off. This truly was a show for the ages, and one I feel privileged to have seen.
Jake Longhurst
Edited by: Caradoc Gayer
In article image courtesy of Weezer via Facebook. In article video courtesy of Green Day via YouTube. Cover image courtesy of Hell Mega Tour via Facebook.
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