Review of Green Day: Bullet In A Bible

Introduction

Green Day have been around for a wee while now. Part of the `new` punk rock genre, the Californian band burst onto the scene Consisting of Billie Joe Armstrong (lead vocals/guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass/vocals) and Tré Cool (drums/vocals), Green Day hit the jackpot with the extremely poppy album Dookie that has sold well in excess of 7 million units in the US alone.

The band seemingly went into a bit of a commercial slump until 2004 when Green Day came back with a bit of a bang. American Idiot was both a concept album and a bit of a dig at US President George W. Bush. As with all the other media events (tours, documentaries, etc), nothing could stop Bush from being re-elected. This still didn`t stop Green Day from taking the world by storm though with an album likened by some to Pink Floyd`s The Wall and The Who`s Tommy (can`t confirm or deny this myself as I have none of them).

Bullet In A Bible was filmed at Milton Keynes in good ol` Blighty, where the band played in front of 65,000 people on 18th and 19th June 2005. Originally a 20 song lineup, only fourteen remain on both the DVD and CD; the rest cut in order to make the release more commercial. Directed by Samuel Bayer, the live footage is interspersed with both interview and location footage. One of the latter features the band in the Imperial War Museum where they are shown an actual exhibition piece of a bullet in a bible; nice tie-in…

Video

Overall a good clear picture, although the director is clearly aiming for the current MTV generation with NYPD Blue-style camera moves and quick switches between colour and black & white. Oh, and for some strange reason the director seems to have a fetish for Billy Joe Armstrong`s mouth as virtually every piece of interview footage with the singer starts there.

Audio

Superb sound, it`s mixed by Chris Lord-Alge and he`s done a great job on it. He`s kept the power but lost the inevitable live rawness, although you get a small feel of that at the start of a few tracks.

Features

CD of the concert, what else do you need? Well, maybe the promo videos for American Idiot and the superb one for Wake Me Up When September Ends, but that`s being very pernickety…

Conclusion

I`ve never really been a Green Day fan, but I`ve caught the likes of American Idiot and the superb Wake Me Up When September Ends on MTV when my son has been watching stuff that young metal heads watch. I`ve been impressed by both the maturity and catchiness of the music on offer, so I wasn`t that nervous when I got the chance to review this release. I`m not a rock/nu-punk (or whatever it`s called this week) fan, but this is very listenable so I can see why this band are so big right now.

One thing that struck me straight away was just how similar in image Billie Jo Armstrong is to Gary Numan circa his Replicas days, right down to the makeup. This may be deliberate or that just might be me making a subconscious connection that isn`t there. It just kind of proves that music is all connected and fashions all come around again. Some of the music also reminds me very much of Carter USM, the sheer energy and what seems to be the same slick power chord dominated pop and thundering drums. As a band, this trio seem to have few peers; they have an energy that is quite infectious and they are incredibly tight (which really does show during the live performances when various members do their own thing while the others play on). Don`t know if it`s because they`re in England for this album, but Green Day entertain their crowd with versions of both Shout (Lulu) and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life (do you really need me to tell you?). Both work well alongside their own material and are clear crowd pleasers (as if virtually everything-else, truth be told).

The only real problem I have with this DVD is that the live footage is disrupted in-between tracks with both interview and on-location footage. Don`t get me wrong, it`s quite interesting but would have been better as a straight concert with the interviews as an extra. Guess the director has more artistic ambition than a straight music feature would have brought.

Overall very addictive and I`m tapping my foot along to a rather anarchic performance of King For A Day on my iPod as I write this. Not sure it`ll ever fully replace the likes of Ultravox or any of the other New Romantic/synth stuff in my collection but it`s one hell of a good listen and worthy of an airing every now and again.

Excellent stuff, might just have to go and get a copy of American Idiot now…