Concert Review: Green Day at Pinkpop Festival 2017

7. June 201726. June 2017 Melissa Wilke

Billie Joe ended the show after more than two hours with a beautiful acoustic rendition of “Ordinary World” and the traditional concert closer “Good Riddance (Time of your Life)” including a well deserved confetti shower for the audience.

Overall, the Pinkpop set was another great Green Day live spectacle. The guys rarely disappoint and their incredible pyro and explosions fit perfectly. While the show might seem too scripted at points, especially when you’ve seen more than just one Green Day concert, the authenticity of the band’s performance counterbalance that effect.

Billie Joe sounded a bit hoarse at times – an impression confirmed at their show in Ljubljana, Slovenia, yesterday. Let’s hope it’s just a temporary issue remedied by some vocal rest. Other than that, he was as hyper as ever, just like Tré who shows so much passion behind the drums at each concert. The same goes for Mike who bounced around and motivated the crowd to chant and jump. Also, props to Jason White, Jason Freese and Jeff Matika who are as much part of a Green Day show as Mike, Tré and Billie Joe.

The setlist was alright. It was a shortened version of their regular “Revolution Radio Tour”-setlist, which they’ve been playing for months now. It definitely keeps the energy at a high level throughout the whole show but my enthusiasm was still a little curbed cause it gets somewhat boring when you’ve seen this set before. Many of the European fans hoped for a few setlist changes, since this is their second leg of the tour and some variety would be nice, especially since Green Day had just debuted “Too Dumb To Die” in Australia – a super catchy track from Revolution Radio that would have been a nice switch up for “Youngblood” which isn’t really a fan favorite.

Personally, I’m still missing songs of their trilogy albums like “Stop When The Red Lights Flash”, “Stay The Night”, “Let Yourself Go” or “Nuclear Family” – at least one of them. “Going To Pasalacqua” would have been awesome, too.

The setlist discussion is a never-ending story, though. There just isn’t the perfect Green Day setlist cause the guys have too many great songs to cater to everyone’s wishes. Also, they’ve been playing shows for 30 years now, and one thing that makes them one of the best live bands is that they pour out their hearts and souls on the stage. They can only keep that up when they play the songs THEY want to play, instead of the songs the fans want them to play.

In conclusion: Green Day are epic and you should see them live if you haven’t yet. If you have, see them again!