After Thoughts: Green Day - Madison Square Garden; July 27, 2009

Kind of a backwards process from last year's Foo Fighters' concert After Thoughts, as I've already posted all the media prior to this. But one year later, the feature has become refined.

As the title states, the concert was at Madison Square Garden, right in New York City. The show was the first of two nights at the arena, and the first show of the tour with Kaiser Chiefs opening (The Bravery opened for the previous shows, and Franz Ferdinand will replace Kaiser Chiefs later in the tour). Personal fact, this was also the first concert where I was actually excited to see both the opening and headlining bands!

Kaiser Chiefs opened with a bang, starting the show off with "Never Miss A Beat" without any introductions. A bulk of the crowd was poser-punks and younger kids sadly, so not a lot of people were getting into the band. I was a distance away, but I enjoyed them no less and really dug Kaiser Chiefs' stage presence, particularly lead singer, Ricky Wilson's energy.

Kaiser Chiefs' set list was surprisingly short, only playing eight songs which lasted about thirty minutes:
1. Never Miss A Beat / 2. Ruby / 3. Everyday I Love You Less and Less / 4. The Angry Mob / 5. I Predict A Riot / 6. You Want History / 7. Take My Temperature / 8. Oh My God

But despite the set list being short, it featured some of the band's finest songs, not to mention the B-side track, "Take My Temperature", which I never heard prior to the show was pretty awesome. So all in all, it was a short but sweet opener, and I love to see Kaiser Chiefs live again.

However, the reason most people in the building came to the show was for Green Day, obviously. Interesting fact, prior to the band coming out, next to where I was sitting there was this little VIP section, and Billie Joe Armstrong's wife was there; nothing exciting, but I'm just saying. Soon after, the lights went out, and "Song of the Century" started to play, with the familiar piano playing of "21st Century Breakdown" starting to play, the back drop lit up, and BAM! the band started to play. And lucky for you readers I recorded the whole thing and uploaded it.

Now, while Kaiser Chiefs' set was short, Green Day's was not, in fact it was about two and a half hours, spanning over 30 songs! Here's the run down:
1. Song of the Century / 2. 21st Century Breakdown / 3. Know Your Enemy / 4. East Jesus Nowhere / 5. Holiday / 6. The Static Age / 7. Before the Lobotomy / 8. Are We the Waiting / 9. St. Jimmy / 10. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams / 11. 2000 Light Years Away / 12. Welcome To Paradise/ 13. Castaway (sort of..) / 14. When I Come Around / 15. Disappearing Boy / 16. Brain Stew / 17. Jaded / 18. Longview / 19. Basket Case / 20. She / 21. King For A Day / 22. Shout (The Isley Brothers cover) / 23. 21 Guns / 25. American Eulogy // Encore: 26. American Idiot / 27. Jesus Of Suburbia / 28. Minority // Encore 2: 28. Drama Queen (Billie Joe solo) / 29. Last Night on Earth (Billie Joe solo) / 30. Good Riddance (Billie Joe solo)

As you can see, the first hour or so of the concert was all about 21st Century Breakdown and some of American Idiot (grr). But then the band surprised me, in a really good way by playing two tracks from Kerplunk in a row, "2000 Light Years Away" and "Welcome To Paradise" (though that was also on Dookie). After, "Castaway" (from Warning:) started playing, and in the middle of singing Billie Joe stopped, saying, "I f***ed up the words," and then "When I Come Around started. My personal highlight was when "Disappearing Boy" started to play, because that's off of 39/Smooth, the band's first album and my personal favorite. And if you're like me, thinking that Green Day has forgotten their roots, hearing that live, in 2009, was something special in my opinion.

There was a lot of fan interaction which I found really cool though. Numerous times the band would have audience members come on stage to either sing, play guitar, or to just screw around with. And during the transition of "Brain Stew" to "Jaded", Billie Joe got out a huge water-gun and sprayed the crowd, and also used this peculiar toilet paper thing and also shot out some t-shirts; and you can watch it all here! Speaking of fans, as I mentioned before with Kaiser Chiefs, a bulk of the crowd was poser-punks and younger kids, and even parents... not my choice crowd to be honest. And I noticed something, during the American Idiot/21st Century Breakdown tracks everyone's really into it, but when Green Day started playing older material, particularly "2000 Light Years Away" and "Disappearing Boy", all those posers and kids looked lost, and that was really annoying but certainly proved a point.

The hour of older stuff closed out with "King for a Day" (from Nimrod) which transitioned into the necessarily long "Shout"; with "21 Guns" and "American Eulogy" closing out the set... But, of course, Green Day took the stage again, thanked the fans, and said they'd "play the show till we die". So "American Idiot" and "Jesus of Suburbia" played, with "Minority" closing out once again. But it was not over yet, as Billie Joe Armstrong came out solo this time, to play a three song acoustic set.

Overall, the concert was pretty awesome, and considering it was my first show at Madison Square Garden it wasn't too shabby either. Seating was OK, though it'd probably be nicer to be a little closer to the stage next time; regardless, the experience was great, and I certainly would love to see both Green Day and Kaiser Chiefs live again in the future!

If you missed all the links, be sure to check out my photos and videos from the show.

Media Update: Kaiser Chiefs and Green Day at Madison Square Garden

I know, it's 3:30 AM right now, and I'm tired as hell. While my After Thoughts for Green Day's concert at Madison Square Garden last night may not be up yet, I've already gone and posted some photos on our Flickr and some videos on our YouTube channel, VFHvideo, of both Green Day and opening band, Kaiser Chiefs.

(click to see the whole gallery at Flickr!)


Kaiser Chiefs - "Everyday I Love You Less and Less"
(Also watch "Oh My God" at VFHvideo)


Green Day - "Song of the Century" / "21st Century Breakdown"
(Also watch "Jaded" at VFHvideo)

Not much to go by right now, I know, but I assure you the After Thoughts for the show will be up later today. And yes, if you're curious I did take more photos, but Flickr has a lot of file/bandwidth limits so I had to really pick and choose what would be posted or not; as for videos, what you see is all I took, though I'm sure you'll be able to find more on YouTube sooner or later. Enjoy! And just in case you were curious, the show was awesome!

After Thoughts: Royal Bliss - The Machine Shop; July 24th, 2009

Yesterday night at The Machine Shop I stopped in for a free show; a band I had never heard of, Royal Bliss, was playing, along with two other bands that I missed due to being a little late. But despite missing 2/3rds of the bands that played last night, I walked away extremely satisfied, energized, and just plain psyched. That feeling came from the headlining band, and the only one I saw. Royal Bliss.

The singer was just so full of energy, he was genuinely happy to be up on that stage performing. They all were, and it showed. They had fun, and in turn the crowd really got into things. They seemed to know how to work the crowd pretty well, and it made it all the better, getting all pumped up before the song, you just could help but move along with the music. Also worth mentioning, there was a completely kick-ass drum solo in the middle of one of the songs where the vocalist picked up a second pair of drumsticks and played along with the drummer. How awesome is that?

After listening to their album, I'm coming to the conclusion that they're one of the few bands that sound better live than they do on their CD. I could just feel the electricity from the stage, it was a crazy good time, and the lead singer was a pretty funny guy to boot. Not to say that their studio material is bad, not by any means. But you just can't beat that raw feeling that a good live performance gives.

Overall, what I got from that concert was respect. That was a group of people who loved what they did, and loved their fans, they where playing a free show for the people, and it's hard not to respect that. If you get the chance to go out and see them live, do it. You will not regret it. If the opportunity doesn't come up, at least check them out at their MySpace.

Blur to play at Hyde Park: July 3rd, 2009

NME.com has gotten the first video interview with Blur since the announcement of their reunion. And now they have announced the date and location for their first show:

July 3rd, 2009 at Hyde Park in London.

Parlophone has their own version of the interview on YouTube:


I have to say, it's a really great site to see all four of these guys back together. But it's especially great to see Graham Coxon back with the group (after his departure during the recording of 2003's Think Tank). As to what this means for Coxon's seventh solo record is unknown, but perhaps being dropped from his label had something to do with his willingness to reunite.

Be sure to check out NME's Blur page for the latest news on the band, as there are plenty of written articles on the event.

Quick clarification

Remember that Foo Fighters media I had posted from the Izod Center concert? Remember how awful the quality was that I couldn't actually tell what song it was? Well, after further review of other people's videos from the show, I can conclude that that song is actually "Let It Die" from the band's latest album, Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace.

Enjoy the poor quality, once again!

Foo Fighters: Concert media

I got the images and videos from my brother. They were taken on his cellphone, so you'll have to forgive the quality.

(click to view the Flickr set)

There were also two videos taken, but be warned, the quality is pretty bad. To compensate, I have embeded them small, but you can still see them here and here.

After Thoughts: Foo Fighters - Izod Center; July 29, 2008

This is a new feature I want to try out, its not a review, and its not quite impressions; it's just more fitting for things that can't really be reviewed that way, enjoy!

The concert was at the Izod Center, the recently reopened arena, formerly known as Continental Airlines Arena, in East Rutherford, NJ; the same place I saw Iron Maiden. The show had two bands opening for Foo Fighters, the first was Year Long Disaster, a hard rock three-piece band from Los Angeles. The weren't awful, but it was just so loud that you could barely hear the vocals, and every song sounded the same. There's not much else I can say about them; good news is they were only coming to select shows. The next opening, and the band turning everywhere with Foo Fighters was Supergrass. Supergrass is a Brit-pop band from, you guessed it, Great Britain. The catchy Brit-pop tunes were a nice change from the loud repetitive mess of Year Long Disaster. I'm not very familiar with Supergrass' catalog, but I wouldn't mind looking into it after seeing them live. Heck, they're even on the Parlophone label along with Coldplay, Blur, and used to have Radiohead; they also dropped Graham Coxon, but that's a rant for another day. It was kind of funny though, midway through their set, the keyboardist's synthesizer busted, so he sat bored for the rest of the songs.

But here's what you really want to see, Foo Fighters. I should mention, the way the stage was set up was: you have the main stage on one end, then a walkway stage to middle of the General Admission area, that leads to a smaller stage. I was standing on the fence of the right side of the walkway. Now that that's settled, let's get to the show. Lights dim, the band enters, Dave Grohl grabs his guitar and comes down the walkway, he was literally 5 feet away from me. He walks back, and the show starts with "Let It Die", the sound is much better than the openers, as one would hope. What was kind of neat was the stage had 4 sets of LED screens, that actually were invisible when off, it was strange, but cool. They play more songs, loud, fast, pure awesomeness.

Midway in those early tracks Dave starts talking, dropping many an F-bomb, and says this is the last concert of the tour. In actually it isn't, by far, and they're actually playing the same set list the whole tour, go figure. We finally get to "Stacked Actors", one of my favorites from There's Nothing Left To Lose, but they managed to make that 4 minute song last about ... 20 minutes. It was crazy; the song played for the most part, then there was a 5 minute or so drum solo, then the band returns and Dave Grohl and Chris Shiflett have a guitar duel, and eventually a guy (can't remember his name) has a 3 minute harmonica solo, and then they played again. It was total craziness, but really fun.

This led to the acoustic set. The band walked down the walkway, the 4 main members as well as 4 touring members, and as they walked, a stage lowered down into the set spot in the middle. I was quite the small space for 8 people and all their instruments, but it worked. "Skin & Bones", "Marigold" ( a Nirvana B-side written by Grohl), and "My Hero" were played and then Dave introduced the 7 other band members. He started with the pianist, who got a few second solo, then went to former member (but still touring) Pat Smear, who just smoked. Then lead guitarist Chris Shiflett got to do a couple Ace Freely rifts, and bassist Nate Mendel decided to not show off and just stare. Next was the violinist, who got a minute or so to show off her skills, and then was the big one, as stated by Dave Grohl himself, "the best triangle player in the world". He then went on to call out Green Day's and Rage Against the Machine's triangle players, quickly noting that they didn't have any, and then, yes folks, we were treated to a Triangle Solo! Last to be introduced was drummer Taylor Hawkins, who would sing the next track, "Cold Day in the Sun". The acoustic set ended with a solo version of "Everlong" by Grohl, which went into "Monkey Wrench" as he ran back to the main stage.

Finally, "All My Life" was played and the band left and the lights went black. People were actually leaving, and then a night vision came on the LED displays. It was a sign of the night's set list, and then the camera turned to Dave holding up a finger, mouthing "one more". The camera then turned to Hawkin's who mouthed "two" and put up his fingers, and returned to Grohl, who said "three"; a few seconds later the band returned. Dave thanked the fan for cheering for them to come back, and then told everyone to start french kissing cause "Big Me" was about to play, with the violinist on backing vocals. Next was a song played at the VH1 Rock Honors: The Who last week, it was the second of the night, and featured Supergrass' lead singer, Gaz Coombes, on vocals, and Hawkin's filling in later in the song, just as they did on the show. The closing song was "Best of You", which was rally fitting after Grohl thanked the band, the road crew, and the fans. The night came to an end, but it was quite the site.

For my first non-metal concert, the show was quite enjoyable. No one was pushing towards the stage, or being big fat drunks (at least not around me) and everyone kept to themselves. Dave Grohl turned out to be quite the comedian though, in fact during one of the songs he stopped and people started to sing, and he in turned yelled "shut up, don't sing yet!" which was pretty amusing. He also cracked a few jokes here and there, and it made everything much livelier. All in all I'd say it was a good show, and I wouldn't mind seeing them again. I have provided the set list below:

Set List
- Let It Die
- The Pretender
- Times Like These
- No Way Back
- Learn To Fly
- Cheer Up, Boys
- Young Man Blues (The Who)
- Long Road To Ruin
- Break Out
- Stacked Actors + jam session
- Skin & Bones
- Marigold (Nirvana)
- My Hero
- Cold Day in the Sun
- But, Honestly
- Everlong
- Monkey Wrench
- All My Life
- Big Me
- Bargain (The Who) w/ Gaz Coombes (of Supergrass)
- Best of You

My brother got a few images with his phone, I'll see what I can do about posting them. I'll also keep tabs on the band's website to see if I show up in any of their own photos.

Update: Here's the pictures and videos

Foo Fighters - Izod Center

Going to see the Foo Fighters to tonight at the Izod Center with my brother. My third concert; I've previously seen Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, both times with my brother. So it's my first non-metal concert, so I'm sure the crowd will be a bit different. I may even leave you with some impressions later. I believe the British band, Supergrass, is opening for them. I don't really know any of Supergrass' catalog so I'll see if they're good or not.

So, if you don't hear from me later, you now know where I'll be!

After Thoughts

After Thoughts is a feature that works very much like our reviews. However, unlike our reviews, these articles do not have scores, as they are one time events. Subjects that are reviewed under After Thoughts can range anywhere from concerts, panels, and conventions; where ever the VFH staff goes.

Articles listed alphabetical order, unless noted by a date.


ASIFA-East 'Panel on State of New York Independent Animation'
ASIFA-East Q&A with the creators of Superjail!
ASIFA-East An Evening with John R. Dilworth
Awakening signing at Jim Hanley's Universe
Doctor Who - "The Eleventh Hour" Screening/Q&A
Free Comic Book Day 2009
SVA Q&A with James Franco
SVA Q&A with Josh Brolin
Tron Night 'NEW'


Foo Fighters - Izod Center; July 29, 2008
Green Day - Madison Square Garden; July 27, 2009
Royal Bliss - The Machine Shop; July 24, 2009


E3 2009 - Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3


This post will be updated as the articles come.
Last updated: October 29th, 2010 (12:59 AM EST)