Green Day, Wembley Arena, Sunday 1st November 2009.

I put to you the age old question: Is it better to see a band in a small, sweaty, dirty venue or a shiny, bright stadium or arena? To be honest, I prefer those dark, dingy little venues that parents do not often approve of their children going to. The sort of venues where you have to queue down some dark alley and you get strange people forcing leaflets upon you. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well, sadly Green Day have obviously reached the stage where they play Arena shows instead, or Stadium shows (they play Wembley Stadium next year). But what of Wembley Arena? It has a nice fountain outside that lights up; the kind of fountain that little children run through and then complain when they get wet. Luckily, I did not see much of this fountain because I was in the queue for approximately one minute... one of the many advantages of having an arena with many entrances. The inside is of course typical venue style so I don't really have much to say about that. Overall, good security, lots of places for a good bottle of water (useful for when you nearly faint) and a pretty decent size. 7/10.

The one support act of the night were a band named Prima Donna. To be completely honest, sometimes image is important and if you take to the stage looking like a twat, people are automatically going to assume that you are in fact, a twat... Sadly, they looked like a bunch of twats. To make things worse, their music wasn't much better and they didn't excite the crowd much. I take that back, they didn't excite the crowd at all. Definitely not my cup of tea, or the rest of the crowds it would seem. 35/100. http://www.myspace.com/primadonna

And so, after years of Green Day deprivation, they take to the stage at roughly 8:01PM... after someone dressed up as a pink rabbit has paraded around the stage drinking beer and dancing to the YMCA. Their set somehow managed to last a staggering two and a half hours, and included a mighty setlist of over 30 songs. This setlist had something for everyone; old fans, American Idiot fans and new fans alike as well as a whole load of cover songs including: Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol), Highway To Hell (AC/DC), Iron Man (Black Sabbath) and Knowledge (Operation Ivy). The whole setlist also included: Song of The Century, 21st Century Breakdown, Know Your Enemy, East Jesus Nowhere, Holiday, The Static Age, Give Me Novacaine, Letterbomb, Are We The Waiting, St Jimmy, Scattered, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 2000 Light Years Away, Hitchin' A Ride, Welcome To Paradise, When I Come Around, Brain Stew, Basket Case, She, 21 Guns, Minority, American Idiot, Jesus Of Suburbia, Macy's Day Parade, Wake Me Up When September Ends and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). Suprisingly, there were MORE songs than that. Not only did they manage to cram all these songs into their set but they also managed to get about 15 people up on stage with them. 10 who all fell on the floor, 3 to 'form a band' (the guitarist of this band then stage dived back into the crowd), one to wear a crown and one boy little boy who Billie Joe caught on his phone and was therefore embarrassed in front of everyone by being made to climb down from the seated section, climb onstage and stand in the middle waving his arms along to the next song. Other events also involved the whole band dressing up, Billie Joe getting a hose out to spray us folks down the front, and firing t-shirts into the crowd via a confusing mechanism that vaguely resembled a rocket launcher. Finally I would like to give a round of applause to the guy who decided to dress up as Tinky Winky. This was a night that I had been waiting for for years. It did not fail on it's mission to entertain. 90/100. http://www.myspace.com/greenday

NOTE; Gemma is beginning to miss TOO many gigs :(