Green Day may be getting older, but boredom and political anger are timeless

A quick look at Globe Life Field on Wednesday night at the Green Day show in Arlington showed some people with green mohawks, many people with tattoos – and a lot of people with earplugs.

We're old, folks.

It has been 30 years since Green Day burst onto the pop-punk scene with their third album, “Dookie,” and 20 years have passed since the release of their anti-Iraq War rock opera, “American Idiot.”

If, like me, you were young enough to have your high school friend burn you a CD of “American Idiot” in 2004, congratulations. It's time to start wearing earplugs and Dr. Scholl's to every concert you attend. And if you were a teenager in 1994 when “Dookie” came out, here's a reminder to schedule your first colonoscopy.

Green Day comes to Globe Life

But all references to aging punks aside, Wednesday night's show at the home of the Texas Rangers was anything but senile. The evening started early with the Linda Lindas (who previously opened for Paramore when they came to Fort Worth), followed by Rancid and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Later, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool led the full audience (apart from the seats in the outfield) through the two albums “Dookie” and “American Idiot” as well as some older and six new songs.

The Californian trio still wows the crowd and pokes fun at themselves, as they always have. Armstrong seemed to take an anarchic delight in leading the crowd through songs like “Minority” and “Know Your Enemy,” which are not on the album. Inflatable airplanes dropped beach ball-like bombs over the crowd. Armstrong wore a giant foam Texas Rangers cowboy hat given to him by a fan. There were pyrotechnics of some sort during almost every song.

Despite all this stagecraft, the most surprising thing about the evening was how apolitical it was, apart from the “American Idiot” aspect of it all. This album was The defining rock artifact of the early 2000s. Had this been 2004, Armstrong would have taken the opportunity to comment on the fact that the band was playing at a baseball stadium in George W. Bush's home state. But aside from a lyric change in “American Idiot” from “I'm not a part of a redneck agenda” to “MAGA agenda” (which, by the way, is nothing new; Armstrong has been doing this for some time) and a call for a ceasefire in Gaza at the beginning of “Holiday,” there were no political statements.

🚨 More top stories from our newsroom:

→ See how your school performed in the Fort Worth ISD AF results

→ Public demands dismissal of police officer who shot at driver after hit-and-run

→ Candidates threaten to sue Tarrant County over voter access

[Get our breaking news alerts.]

The most controversial words of the evening may have been the words repeatedly mentioned by Armstrong in which he referred to Arlington as Dallas.

“Tonight is not a political party,” said Armstrong towards the end of the evening. “This is not even a [expletive] Party. It's a celebration!”

Anniversaries of “Dookie” and “American Idiot”

And they celebrated. The Saviors Tour celebrates the anniversaries of “Dookie” and “American Idiot,” and the set and stage decorations underlined the cheeky apathy and theatrical, righteous anger of those albums, respectively.

The show began at 8:30 p.m. on a huge stage in the outfield. Recordings of two songs set the tone for the evening: “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones. A person in a bunny costume and a Texas Rangers jersey ran out to pump up the crowd during “Blitzkrieg Bop” before the band took the stage.

Since it was an anniversary tour, Green Day played a song from their new album “Saviors” and then jumped straight into the absolute “dookie” of the tour. They played through the 14 songs from the album in almost less time than it takes to listen to the studio version.

It then continued with a few more songs from “Saviors” and a few oldies like “Minority” and “Brain Stew” before going on another album-long journey with “American Idiot”.

⚡ More trending stories from our newsroom:

→Why HE-B's Central Market in Fort Worth could be busy this weekend

→ This Fort Worth resident is the richest woman in the world, according to Forbes

→Can you be charged with drunk driving in Texas if you are sitting in a parked car?

It's worth noting that American Idiot contains not one but two songs that are over nine minutes long, and everyone at Globe Life sang along to every word of “Jesus of Suburbia” and “Homecoming.” Armstrong, Dirnt and Cool are adept at playing the album's familiar riffs and hooks while making them sound fresh for a live audience. No easy feat when you've been playing these songs for 20 and 30 years.

A celebration of pop punk

All in all the night Was a celebration, and perhaps a little nostalgia for times gone by, when a rock opera protest album could capture the spirit of the times.

Dookie and American Idiot are two of the most influential pop-punk albums of their respective decades. Dookie epitomized the looser '90s, and American Idiot started a trend of rock operas in the early 2000s while also being a good piece of protest art.

When you listen to them all back to back, you realize how many hits both albums had (the first half of “Dookie” is stronger than most bands’ LPs).

The setlist also showed how much the band has evolved since “Dookie.” Played like this, you can easily see the progression from “Basket Case” to “Brain Stew” and “Good Riddance” to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and their latest single “The American Dream Is Killing Me.”

There wasn't much banter (which is difficult when you're playing nearly 40 songs in less than three hours), but when Armstrong did say something, he talked about celebration, unity, love, joy and enjoying the people you're with. He also condemned the use of cell phones and any kind of propaganda or algorithms.

Green Day may have grown up, but they are definitely not burned out.

GREEN DAY SET LIST, GLOBE LIFE FIELD, ARLINGTON, TEXAS (SEPTEMBER 11, 2024)

1. The American dream is killing me

2. Burn-out

3. Have a great time

4. Idiot

5. Long term

6. Welcome to paradise

7. Pulling teeth

8. Basket case

9. She

10. Sassafras roots

11. When I pass by

12. Speak plainly

13. Emenius Sleepus

14. At the end

15. FOD (with a “Jack and Diane” by John Mellencamp intro)

16. All alone (Tré Cool)

17. Know Your Enemy (A fan named Eva came on stage to sing with the band)

18. Look, mom, no sense!

19. One-eyed bastard

20. Dilemma (with a “Free Fallin'” by Tom Petty intro)

21. minority

22. Brain Stew (with some excerpts from “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath and “Master of Puppets” by Metallica as intro)

23. American Idiot

24. Jesus of Suburbia/City of the Damned/I Don't Care/Deeply Beloved/Tales from Another Broken Home

25. Vacation

26. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

27. Are we the ones waiting

28. St.Jimmy

29. Give me Novocain

30. She is a rebel

31. Extraordinary girl

32. Letter bomb

33. wake me Up When September Ends

34. Homecoming/The Death of St. Jimmy/East 12th St./Nobody Likes You/Rock and Roll Girlfriend/We're Coming Home Again

35. What's your name?

Encore

1. Bobby Sox

2. Lip Balm Suzie

3. Goodbye forever (time of your life)