Fox Reviews Rock

With only a day’s break after the Download Festival, we decided to go and see Green Day in the Netherlands. Setting off from London Stansted, flying to Eindhoven, before taking a train to Arnhem.

Managing to get ourselves golden circle tickets at the GelreDome cheaper than the standard tickets in the UK. It was an opportunity this music and travel-loving couple couldn’t pass up!

Spending the morning in Amersfoort, taking in the sights, we got ourselves back to Arnhem and onto a bus to the GelreDome. The bus was pretty busy, but luckily we knew where to get off as the whole bus emptied out after reaching the arena.

The GelreDome, a 4-star UEFA-rated stadium (highest rating), is home to the football club Vitesse Arnhem. It holds an incredible 41,000 people for concerts and has a snazzy retractable roof. After a wander around the outside, we queued up for some food. Realizing at that moment that we needed to buy a pre-pay card for all food and drinks, we found the kiosk and topped up €50 on the card before buying some of the best Thai street food we have ever had. Enjoying it so much, we managed to lose the prepaid card!

Given a little wooden token on our entry to the stadium, we later figured out it was for the cup deposit. It was all very confusing with the way the food and drinks were organized. With no signage, we ended up helping out a German group having the same problems as us!

We found ourselves in a good position in the center of the golden circle crowd for The Interrupters, who were not on the UK leg of the tour. Their set started with ‘Gave You Everything’ and then ‘Raised By Wolves’. As their set was quite short, they stuck to performing songs predominantly with a small amount of banter thrown in for good measure. Their cover of ‘Bad Guy’, originally by Billie Eilish and featured on Umbrella Academy, got the crowd singing along and dancing.

We thought Aimee Allen did a fantastic job with her lively performance and incredible voice, supported incredibly well by the rest of the band. We would definitely come and see this ska/punk band again; however, it seems rare that they make a UK appearance.

Wanting to avoid as much of The Hives’ set as possible, we took the opportunity to get a drink from the bar. For a band with great songs, it is a shame that their live performances revolve around their lead singer Pelle Almqvist talking about himself. This was our experience from when we previously saw them supporting The Offspring, and it was the same again.

It’s not all negative though, the songs the Hives did play were very well performed, especially hits such as ‘Main Offender’ that got the crowd jumping, ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’, and ‘Tick Tick Boom’. We were hoping they would have also played ‘Die, All Right!’ and ‘Two-Timing Touch And Broken Bones’ but they played more songs from their new album instead.

Finally, the reason we were here, Green Day! We saw them last year at the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas, USA, and in Dublin the year before at the Hella Mega Tour, but this performance was probably their best we have seen yet!

Kicking off with their usual ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen playing over the sound system while the band prepared to come on stage, followed by Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and a rabbit mascot causing chaos on stage before the band joined it.

Usually Green Day opens with ‘American Idiot’; however, this time it was replaced by ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’. We aren’t particularly fans of this new song, but it does have a bit more life when performed live. The change of opening songs was due to both albums “Dookie” and “American Idiot” being played in full and in order. Starting with ‘Burnout’ from Dookie and ending the main set with ‘Whatsername’ from American Idiot. There were incredible set props for each album’s cover art.

As Green Day played both albums within their 2-hour time slot, it didn’t leave much time for Billie’s “aahh ooohhs” that he usually constantly delivers. Honestly, I (Rex) was pretty glad! Although they dropped this feature, we are glad that they still asked a fan to come play guitar on stage with them, except it was with ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ instead of the usual ‘Knowledge’. We aren’t sure if this was also unplanned as the fan was holding up a sign to ask, and it seemed quite impromptu!

Both ‘Welcome to Paradise’ and ‘Basket Case’ from Dookie were performed incredibly well. We also really enjoyed the bonus track ‘All By Myself’ performed by Tre Cool wearing a leopard print smoking jacket and dancing around like an idiot on stage, a fun addition!

There were a few songs off their new album “Saviors”, and a few classics played in between the albums, such as “Dilemma” and “Know Your Enemy”. As “Brain Stew” was playing, the huge inflatable clouds from the “Dookie” album cover disappeared and were replaced with the hand holding a heart grenade from the “American Idiot” album cover, with fire distracting from the transition.

As soon as the hand holding the heart grenade was inflated, “American Idiot” started playing. It was incredibly well orchestrated! Enjoying how smoothly Green Day went from song to song, we especially liked the transition between “Holiday” and “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams,” similar to how the recorded album plays. Midway through “St. Jimmy,” red string confetti covered the crowd. We got truly entangled in it all!

The encore was ‘Bobby Sox’ from Saviors, with the final song being the usual ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ from Nimrod.

Getting out of the arena was incredibly easy with lots of buses ready and available. We think it was a very organized way of encouraging people to use public transport, later hearing that very few people actually drove.

The GelreDome is firmly on our list of venues for future concerts due to an all-around positive experience. With Green day being St. Jimmy’s favorite band (if you hadn’t guessed by now) we will absolutely be going to see them again, and again, and again!

St. Jimmy & Rex ☠️🖤

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