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I miss the singer guy of Green Day posting on Instagram. Those were the days... The last three months have been extra gross. No Fun Mondays and the weird posts helped make the pandemic not as terrible by just that little bit... I am complaining here because my friends IRL don’t care that the singer of Green Day deleted his Instagram but I think you guys do. Thanks for being there GDC ❤️

I’m feeling really emotional today about missing Green Day and that photo right there brought it all back. The inclusiveness, the generosity, the way they make every fan feel accepted and important. He gives us love we give it right back. It’s not something to take for granted, It’s not something every band does. It all comes from Billie and his desire to connect and create community, an extension of the community he came from. He wants people to love music and to get all the good feelings from it that he does. For outcast people lacking that kind of love and acceptance in their lives especially (I found it as an adult but did not have it for much of my life), being a part of Idiot Nation feels as necessary as breathing. I was watching one of the many many videos where he brings a fan onstage to play guitar, in this case a young girl, and she can’t play the chords so he has to pick someone else, but after he calls her back and gives her the guitar and tells her to practice. She says “I’ll do it for you”. That’s a fan that could have walked away feeling rejected and bad about herself and instead he gave her this gift of kindness and her memory is a positive one and she will go to the ends of the earth for him (or walk through a wall of spiders!) I have never once seen or heard a story of a fan interaction when he was not kind and generous. If those stories existed they’d be out there and they’re just not. That’s how special he is, I have rarely seen someone with such enormous empathy. It really matters to him that every person he comes into contact with have a positive experience. That feeling you come away with carries over into times when he’s not around and in ways he doesn’t even realize. I’m feeling Green Day’s absence more and more as we go into year two of no shows and now months of no online interaction. I get that he may need to do this for his own well being and mental health and I support it but it’s only because of the person he is that his absence leaves such a void. The occasional merch drop just can’t make up for it. That would make them just like every other band and they’re not like every other band. Sorry for going off but the longer it goes the harder it gets and I just needed to vent. 🥺

8 years ago today in Quebec City. I MISS THEM!

I miss that singer guy too, whatshisface. I'm starting to forget what he looks and sounds like.

I've posted screenshots of this performance before, but I watched it again recently and just had to take more because LOOK AT HIM! There are so many Billie looks that I love, but this is the one that I always seem to be drawn back to. I think it's because 21CB Billie was my introduction to him and when I first fell in love and that gives me a soft spot for it. Absolute perfection!

Billie looks soooo good in red and black

The hair. The eyes. Red shirt 😍😍

I'm forgetting him too, but not the time

Something similar happened over Warning. Some nobody tried to sue them and then quietly went away when it was pointed out that they both probably stole from The Kinks’ Picture Book and he didn’t want to open the door to getting sued himself. The Kinks apparently never bothered with suing Green Day.

given the timeline they followed for the sales of Phase 1, i figured we woulda heard something about Phase 2 by now..

Social Media in the last year has been the worst place to be. Don’t blame him for getting off of it and if I was him I wouldn’t want to get back on ever.

New video for Future Daydream https://www.instagram.com/tv/CNlMZkBDC2e/?igshid=12todh4h7ivgu

Is it this? Edit: I watched it and realized I'd seen it before. It's one of those package videos put together with a bunch of music journalists talking about the band's rise and what made Dookie so great. It's okay, they only had rights to a few live shows and not the album tracks so they had a cover band playing a lot of the songs which was dumb. The best thing about it is Larry's stuff, though most of it are things he's said in other interviews. The funniest goof is they mention them living in the Ashby house (in Berkeley) but confuse it with Ashbury Ave in San Francisco so for several minutes they show B roll of the Haight-Ashbury section of SF that has nothing to do with Green Day 😄

To be honest, I have a feeling that's what they (or certainly Billie) were going after with RevRad. I also think that Billie especially will have been disappointed by them struggling to sell out arenas/stadiums during the world tour and the fact that arguably fewer people were paying attention to them in 2016/2017 than even during the trilogy. I think the fact that other "contempories" like the Foo Fighters were also seemingly doing better (and put more in the limelight) didn't help. It's all rather unfortunate, because while the album or tour cetainly weren't my favourite, I do think that better production on RevRad and better management (as well as promotion) for the tour would have gone a long way. Now I obviously don't think it's quite as simple as saying FOAM is just their mid-life crisis or that Billie/the guys were somehow bitter and jealous, but quite honestly, I think it must have hurt to put your heart and sould into an album like RevRad (also remembering the complete public fiasco of the trilogy) and then not get as much recognition for it as you might have hoped. I think that sucks and I could understand that feeling all too well. However, seeing that FOAM probably didn't tick anyone's boxes either (neither for negative attention, nor for critical or popular acclaim), I think they will eventually return to a more "classic" Green Day sound, or at least move away from forceably trying to sound fresh and edgy. Wether that'll be a scaled-down project embracing their new "status" as a band post the huge successes of Dookie/AI/21CB, where they'll try to appeal more to long-time fans (possibly something Longshot or Nimrod/Warning inspired) or wether they'll attempt to pull off another concept album / rock opera, I don't know. But I feel like it might go in either direction.

This rare Kerplunk CD Repress in Red and White!!

Now I want Billie to sing Jolene I feel you about wanting your friends to appreciate Billie. One of my friends is a casual fan and I accomplished to get another friend to understand what I like about Billie when I showed him the longshot and kevin - apparently, Green Day isn’t punk enough, but liking Billie because he still plays in bars and has a cute boyfriend is understandable. Maybe that’s the way to convert people.

Less than zero chance that Toronto happens. The border is still closed. They aren't gonna let one hundred plus people in from all over the US to perform for tens of thousands.

I’m surprised he’s able to live as privately as he seemingly does. It’s pretty impressive.

Back to the show at The Independent, there's not much but 22 seconds of arms here is pretty nice

It was The Independent in San Francisco. Glad this video is still up. I remember watching it over and over.

Oh yeah, that's a really great one! Billie looks super beautiful even without any makeup on (or minimal). It's always cool to hear him talk about his guitars.