Your heart pounds. You’ve never been so aware of your body and mind. You have never felt so understood. For someone who can’t seem to escape loneliness, it sure feels like you’re on your way. This is more than just desire. This is true love. It has to be.
You know what I’m talking about.
No, not that. Something more important. The day you discover your favorite band.
For me, that was a Thursday in June 2010. One of my closest friends was moving states away, the 6’9” twelfth-grade boy I’d been nursing a terrible crush on had just graduated and wouldn’t be there when I returned to school as a tenth grader, and I was angry. That was the day I heard Green Day’s Grammy-winning album American Idiot in full for the first time. I was six years late; I know. But the first time I heard the song “Jesus of Suburbia,” I was a new person.
My love for Green Day only grew from there. I bought every album they had ever released. I saw American Idiot: The Musicalfour times and cried joyful tears when I learned that the amateur rights to perform the show were made available sometime last year. I prayed for vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong when he went into rehab in late 2012 and for bassist Mike Dirnt and his wife, Britney Cade, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. It’s the fan experience that most people can attest. You’re part of a family. No one knows your name, but they know that you’re there.
So, why do I bring all of this up today? Well, on October 7, Green Day released their first album in four years, Revolution Radio. I write this article before October 7, so I’m sure by the time you’re reading this, I will have most of the tracks memorized. Except, actually, I’m not sure. I’ve been feeling pretty strange about the Green Day fan experience lately.
Allow me to explain.
This summer, those joyful tears of mine came back when I opened Rolling Stone one night at a friend’s house. There was a little piece about the band right there, announcing the release of their new album and the promise that the band would tour. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen the heavens, but I think I might have heard them click open as I put that magazine back down on the kitchen counter.
You see, for the past few years, I’ve been convinced I’d never be able to see Green Day. My teenage sister has seen many of her favorite acts from Jack White to Duran Duran, but I’ve never seen the band that made me feel alive and like a real person for the first time in my young life. When I heard that tickets were on sale for a show this September, I rushed to my computer to buy tickets immediately.
How great! I thought. I’ll buy a ticket. Oh, and I’ll buy one for My Very Tall Friend who loves Green Day and has never been to a concert! This is going to be the best!
This was not great. It was actually the worst.
See, when I logged on to buy my tickets early this September, I found there were no tickets. Resellers got a hold of them before they went on sale. The only way I could see Green Day was if I was willing to pay upwards of $700, which as a university student, I can’t really manage. You know the drill. As a university student, it’s a miracle I can afford a Diet Dr. Pepper.
And I got angry. I was angry at the scam for happening, of course, but that’s to be expected. People are evil. They’re all about making a buck and then, if they’re really lucky, another buck. More than that, I was angry with Green Day. I still am.
After public cries of outrage from longtime fans who felt cheated, fans like me, the band remained silent. They didn’t cancel the dates and reschedule them. The only cancellation and rescheduling that happened was after they were too sick to perform, and I couldn’t get affordable tickets for that, either. They didn’t even offer up an apology.
You might be confused. Why does a super rich and famous band that was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame need to apologize to a bunch of people who couldn’t afford their tickets? They’re huge! What else can you expect?
Um. How about, “Way to backpedal on your entire mission statement, Green Day?”
Green Day isn’t supposed to be a rich kid’s band. It’s supposed to be a band for all of us kids who didn’t have enough space in their bedrooms for their passions, so they had to take out their beds to make room. It’s supposed to be a band for all of us kids in the back of the class who don’t have the fanciest shoes, but damned if we didn’t have the best taste in music. It’s supposed to be a band for all of us kids who have grown into all of us adults who are politically conscious because we learned from Billie’s speech during a 2005 performance of “Minority.” We’ve been listening to you guys, and we don’t just mean your guitar riffs.
So, how can you do this to us? How can you sit back and say nothing when you must know that we’ve been cheated? Your concerts won’t be packed with fans who keep you in their prayers and quote you in their first-ever literary publications (OK, maybe that one was just me.). You’ll be face-to-face with a bunch of rich kids who don’t even know all the words to “21 Guns” and are just looking for something to post on Facebook.
Instagram? I don’t know what’s popular. My birth certificate says I’m 22, but I don’t think that’s right.
Regardless. By staying silent, Green Day is essentially telling us that they aren’t the same band. They aren’t for the working-class hero anymore (Interestingly, that was the John Lennon song they beautifully covered for a tribute by Amnesty International back in 2007.). They don’t have to be. As much as I want to hear them sing “American Idiot” right in front of me, it seems almost too hypocritical at this point. It would be empty. The band that told us not to do the propaganda has perfected the dance. And I hate every second of it.
A fan on the forums put it best: “I guess they don’t care as much about us as we care about them.”
Which is fine. It’s their choice. Being a Green Day fan is in my blood, and I don’t think I can stop that. I’m even listening their song about Amy Winehouse as I write this piece. But that doesn’t change the fact that in 2016, my favorite band broke my heart and didn’t even apologize. And that’s just wrong.
(Me, left, age 17, with friends I made merely because Green Day exists. If only Green Day knew they had the power to start friendships. Then, they'd surely apologize. Right?)
