In 2012 Green Day were as ambitious and idealistic as ever. Coming off the success of their second rock opera, 21st Century Breakdown, and subsequent world tour; Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool, were poised to release three albums in late 2012 (¡Uno! , ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!), one after another, in relatively short succession.
To build some hype around it they played a club date in LA, some festival gigs in Japan and Europe, the MTV VMAs, and the intimate Irving Plaza in NYC.
Movies based around rock concerts have a long and illustrious history. Next month the film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) will be all entertainment journalists and fans will be talking about as Swifties pack theaters in North America to relive or just sing along to their favorite tunes.
While that film will surely break records, sell mountains of popcorn, and warm hearts, let's look back at some of the other concert films that were all the rage in their day.
On September 20, 1973, Neil Young and his handpicked group called The Santa Monica Flyers, ended a month of practice in an East Hollywood studio to perform at a brand new rock club on the Sunset Strip called the Roxy.
Young and the Flyers played two sets each night at the West Hollywood club from 9/20-9/23 of new songs that would make up 1975's Tonight's the Night studio album that went to #25 in the charts.
The Smashing Pumpkins celebrated the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough album Siamese Dream with a special show Sunday (9/17) in their hometown of Chicago with rarities, memories, and huge smiles.
The band, led by Billy Corgan, assembled at the singer's tea room to recreate the in-store performance they had on July 27, 1993 at the Tower Records in Chicago.
Run The Jewels, the explosive hip-hop duo made up of Killer Mike and El Producto, dropped their self titled debut in 2013. To celebrate 10 years in the game, the group is doing short residencies in a few major cities in North America
Kicking it off in NYC, the pair performed the album the great producer Prince Paul once deemed one of the Top 5 best concept albums. “To me that’s a concept record, because they came out with personas of hardcore gangster guys and made songs based on that," he told All Hip Hop.
Olivia Rodrigo had a huge hit in 2021, and had appeared on a wide variety of shows to solely play "drivers license," but it wasn't until September 18 that she had her first real concert experience.
The then-18-year-old singer closed out the Daytime Stage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas with a five-song set from her debut album, Sour,
Roger Waters took The Wall on tour for the first time on September 15, 2010.
The co-founder of Pink Floyd and lyricist of the moody 1979 rock opera had previously taken the group's other enormous album, 1972's The Dark Side of the Moon, around the world from 2006-2008.
Major League Baseball stadiums are big, clumsy, awkward, ridiculous places to hold a concert.
Since most parks have no roof, the acoustics can be bad, and since the playing field is so long and flat, there are certainly some dead areas on "the floor" one would rather not be. And if it's still baseball season, as it is now, some teams choose to cover the infield, preventing fans from trampling across the all-important manicured grass.
Wanna feel old? Hozier took us to church ten years ago. Gas was $3.60 cents a gallon and dropping, Miley was riding her wrecking ball, and Daft Punk was getting lucky winning Grammys.
At the same time, the 6'6" handsome Irish tenor who was born Andrew John Hozier-Byrnex was poised to release "Take Me To Church" on 9/13/13. The complicated tune written and recorded in his parents' attic would go 4x platinum, top the Spotify charts, and do pretty pretty well on YouTube where it's been viewed 769 million times.
Amy Winehouse was born Sept 14, 1993 in the suburban area of North London called Southgate. Today she would have turned 40.
When Amy was 20, she was interviewed by The Guardian about her debut album, Frank, which didn't agree with the singer. The label chose mixes and songs she did not approve of and the hype, she felt, was not there
