Green Day set time and Billie Joe struggling to sing

[legendary]

In the RevRad tour, he had big problems in Still Brearthing performances, 'cause It's a really hard song to perform live, but now is different. 

As Hella Mega started, we have noticed the short duration sets and some people complaining about It. After watch some proshots, I can cleary say that was done not only because they were playing with Weezer and FOB, but for BJ. He always has strugging to sing the last songs, in some parts his voice almost disappear.

Don't get me wrong... I know that BJ is 50, but Green Day songs aren't too dificult to sing. Is he taking good care of his own voice?

If It continues like this, I think we'll never have 30 songs setlists anymore.

What's your thoughts about It? 

[Vintage Disciple]

He may be having issues with his voice in recent years...during Rev Rad he was talking about being on Prednisone.

[Beerjeezus]

No I don’t think we’re ever going to get 30 song setlists again. Not just because of Billie Joe but also because of everybody else. It’s probably not super easy to play drums on their songs for a two hour set for example. But speaking of Billie, he’s a 50-year-old who has struggled with addiction for most of his life and also has asthma to boot. He probably is in excellent shape given the circumstances, but honestly, let’s cut some slack where it’s due. We can’t expect him to do the same stuff he did 20 years ago with the same ease. That’s just not realistic and definitely not sustainable in the long run. However, he would absolutely benefit from transposing some songs, vocal training (I wouldn’t be surprised if he got some before HM actually), less screaming during shows (Rock in Rio what were you doing man 😭😭😭) and probably also not doing Jesus Of Suburbia at the end of shows when he’s already tired.

[greendepent]

The band looks ok, but age is catching up. Is just what it is. Transposing is a funny thing because they use to do so all the time, not in a fixed manner, but they do. If I recall correctly, their show on Sweden this year they performed 2000 LYA with standard guitars.

The thing to me is that they need to change certain stuff like KFAD or JOS so late in the set, not because isn't fun (because it it is, at least for me) but those are so long and time consuming. They can do shorter songs to allow to endure better the show. It was clear in the revrad era they were exhausted at the encore, so is an option they could take.

 

[jengd]

I think the days of almost three hour shows maybe are past but he sounded great when I saw them, they are human and everyone has off nights at times.

[GuitarPunk94]

i saw them live two times this year and imo all of them sounded on point, i would go as far as to say they sound better than ever live (me first time seeing them was 2009)

doing shows can be a really hard "job" as a musician, especially at an older age

while GD sound better than ever, look at metallica for example (soon 60yo), they still sound solid but you can hear that hetfield lost his "power/pressure" behind his voice

there is a famous german punk band called "die ärzte" (give them a listen!), they are also close to 60 but they still play 3hour+ shows with over 40 songs in their sets

[pacejunkie punk]

It’s a function of a lot of things including how well you take care of your voice as your instrument over the years. Some singers are obsessive about it and still sound great. Howard Stern once asked Billie if he’s neurotic about it or if he has a routine and he said he really doesn’t. On top of that he uses an inhaler for asthma and smokes and drinks and those things are murder on your vocal chords and endurance long term. I think time is just catching up to him.

[Insomniac90]

56 minutes ago, GuitarPunk94 said:

i saw them live two times this year and imo all of them sounded on point, i would go as far as to say they sound better than ever live (me first time seeing them was 2009)

doing shows can be a really hard "job" as a musician, especially at an older age

while GD sound better than ever, look at metallica for example (soon 60yo), they still sound solid but you can hear that hetfield lost his "power/pressure" behind his voice

there is a famous german punk band called "die ärzte" (give them a listen!), they are also close to 60 but they still play 3hour+ shows with over 40 songs in their sets

Yeah, but you can hear Farin Urlaub lost a little bit of his voice, too. Kinda quiet during the performance but still very good.

And his voice live was better during 21st and RevRad. But Billies Voice is still solid and got a lot of energy live. I think they will play longer sets for the next tour 

[That Dude]

Before we know it, Green Day will come out and play Basketcase and Good Riddance and leave. 

Eventually, it'll just be Good Riddance.  

 

[Westerberg89]

He’s just older, I think it’s that simple man. It’s sad, but that’s life. His voice isn’t as strong as it used to be, live.

Weve been spoiled really, we are so used to them doing 2.5 hour sets minimum. That these new sets of 90 minutes seem short to us, but in reality that’s what most headliners play for these days.

On the idiot tour, they opened with AI straight into JOS. I’d love to see that again, because saving JOS til the end probably isn’t the wisest move these days.

[Christian's Inferno!]

We're really just lucky to be big fans of a band that's as good live as they are in studio. Even if Billie vocally isn't at his best, live performances will continue to be great from them. There are bands and artists who have never been very good live performers. Even during their vocal peak

[Rumpelstiltskin2000]

On the AI Tour the sets were around 21 songs much like the Hella Mega Tour if I remember right and then on 21st Century Breakdown Tour they upped that to 2.45-3 hours. Ever since then the shows have got shorter and shorter with each tour. 

[Insomniac90]

As long as he doesn‘t sound like Axl Rose I‘m fine 😂😂

[still.sleeping]

On 9/19/2022 at 5:37 PM, Vintage Disciple said:

He may be having issues with his voice in recent years...during Rev Rad he was talking about being on Prednisone.

This would make sense at the end of the 1st leg of Hella Mega he looked like he had more of a swollen face in October in Vegas at the Life is Beautiful festival. I suspected he might be taking Prednisone 

[solongfromthestars]

I remember everyone (myself included) thinking Billie sounded terrible when we saw videos from the RevRad club shows. Then I went to shows and as soon as I heard the first soundcheck, I could already tell the videos didn't do him justice and he sounded as good as ever. Even the videos from the shows I was at, where I know he sounded great, make him sound worse than he did. I didn't go to the Hella Mega Tour but I've seen lots of people saying the band are actually at their best. Lots of new fans popping up as well. Recordings can bring out the worst of anyone's voice. As for the set length, yeah, they're just getting older.

[alfredenormal]

I think you guys are jumping to conclusions. Still Breathing is at the top of his range. I was shocked to hear that they even chose it as a single for that reason. You listen to a song like Jesus of Suburbia, the intro already sounds like the top of his range. That's a high F note. Still Breathing's chorus touches a G#. A whole step and a half above one of the highest notes he hit in recent years and a whole octave higher than the 90s era songs ever hit for the most part. Soooo....Billie may be out of his comfort zone with songs like Still Breathing, but he's actually been writing and performing some songs in recent years that have MORE physicality and range than what he's used to.

[RedundantIdiot]

Having gone to Hella Mega, the only difference I noticed in his performance was that he didn’t jump around/jump off things as much as he did during the Rev Rad tour and he didn’t crawl through Mike’s legs during Basket Case. His vocals were great.

[pacejunkie punk]

1 hour ago, alfredenormal said:

I think you guys are jumping to conclusions. Still Breathing is at the top of his range. I was shocked to hear that they even chose it as a single for that reason. You listen to a song like Jesus of Suburbia, the intro already sounds like the top of his range. That's a high F note. Still Breathing's chorus touches a G#. A whole step and a half above one of the highest notes he hit in recent years and a whole octave higher than the 90s era songs ever hit for the most part. Soooo....Billie may be out of his comfort zone with songs like Still Breathing, but he's actually been writing and performing some songs in recent years that have MORE physicality and range than what he's used to.

Why do that though if they’re going to be too difficult to sing live? I wondered about that with the FOAM singles. They never sounded good live and then when the tour started they wouldn’t even perform them.  I heard FRA in St Louis and it was way out of his range and took two takes to get the broadcast version they wanted.  It was the only time they ever performed it live and it was rough. Oh Yeah and FOAM weren’t much better.
 

Challenging yourself is great but write songs you can actually sing without the aid of studio effects and multiple takes. If he keeps doing that we’ll never hear new songs again.

[Beerjeezus]

I appreciate that he keeps trying new things and pushes his limits, but not everything has so sound exactly like on the record. They could change the key when he struggles to sing his songs live or have someone else do some of the vocals like the opening bit in Oh Yeah that he literally never could do live

[alfredenormal]

18 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Why do that though if they’re going to be too difficult to sing live? I wondered about that with the FOAM singles. They never sounded good live and then when the tour started they wouldn’t even perform them.  I heard FRA in St Louis and it was way out of his range and took two takes to get the broadcast version they wanted.  It was the only time they ever performed it live and it was rough. Oh Yeah and FOAM weren’t much better.
 

Challenging yourself is great but write songs you can actually sing without the aid of studio effects and multiple takes. If he keeps doing that we’ll never hear new songs again.

Yeah, sometimes I too scratch my head at the challenging songs they choose to do live. If you notice in the few live appearances for FOAMF, Jason Freese sang the whole song along with Billie to double up and thicken the sound. Never seen the guys do that before. Kind of odd.

[pacejunkie punk]

9 minutes ago, alfredenormal said:

Yeah, sometimes I too scratch my head at the challenging songs they choose to do live. If you notice in the few live appearances for FOAMF, Jason Freese sang the whole song along with Billie to double up and thicken the sound. Never seen the guys do that before. Kind of odd.

And that's fine if it's one song you can skip and not a single, or every song. Wtih FOAM it was literally every single and possibly other songs too that we never heard.

[Montclare]

1 hour ago, Beerjeezus said:

I appreciate that he keeps trying new things and pushes his limits, but not everything has so sound exactly like on the record. They could change the key when he struggles to sing his songs live or have someone else do some of the vocals like the opening bit in Oh Yeah that he literally never could do live

They might have changed things if things had gone on as planned.  I remember wincing at the first few Still Breathing performances, just like I did for Oh Yeah ones.  But as RevRad went on, he lowered how he sang it and it sounded fine.  Might have done the same thing with the FOAM songs if the tour had actually happened in 2020.

[Christian's Inferno!]

1 hour ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Why do that though if they’re going to be too difficult to sing live? I wondered about that with the FOAM singles. They never sounded good live and then when the tour started they wouldn’t even perform them.  I heard FRA in St Louis and it was way out of his range and took two takes to get the broadcast version they wanted.  It was the only time they ever performed it live and it was rough. Oh Yeah and FOAM weren’t much better.
 

Challenging yourself is great but write songs you can actually sing without the aid of studio effects and multiple takes. If he keeps doing that we’ll never hear new songs again.

I'm not one of the people that has the opinion that the band didn't like FOAM. But what I can believe is that the band knew they weren't going to get to play the songs off of FOAM for the most part due to Hella Mega and as a result just made what they thought sounded different and interesting regardless of whether they're songs that would work live or not

I actually just listened to the 3 singles live and they actually sounded better live than I remembered. Not that they're great live performances or that the songs themselves are very good either but they sounded better than I remembered them sounding live. Or maybe I just picked the best live videos for these songs, who knows?

I'm perfectly fine with them making songs that they wouldn't be able to perform in full live as long as they sound good on the album and not every song they release are like that.

[Rumpelstiltskin2000]

Father of All sounded really great in Seville at both the show and the soundcheck. I was pleasantly surprised because I wasn't mad about it when it first came out (I think I didn't like the video and it put me off!) 

[pacejunkie punk]

1 hour ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

I'm not one of the people that has the opinion that the band didn't like FOAM. But what I can believe is that the band knew they weren't going to get to play the songs off of FOAM for the most part due to Hella Mega and as a result just made what they thought sounded different and interesting regardless of whether they're songs that would work live or not

I actually just listened to the 3 singles live and they actually sounded better live than I remembered. Not that they're great live performances or that the songs themselves are very good either but they sounded better than I remembered them sounding live. Or maybe I just picked the best live videos for these songs, who knows?

I'm perfectly fine with them making songs that they wouldn't be able to perform in full live as long as they sound good on the album and not every song they release are like that.

No not every song but the singles certainly have to be at the very least. I think the FOAM singles sounded okay in Sept/Oct but got progressively worse from Nov-Feb. This kind of indicates what it would have been like over the course of a tour.