When I started writing this challenge I promised to update with a daily posting for each topic, along with a posting by my favorite musical artist. So how is it that I can have a favorite band that isn’t Prince?
The first time I heard Green Day was back in 1994. They were a group of kooky little punks that wrote songs about smoking pot and masturbating. Great stuff for a teenager I guess. They were my first concert, traveling to the UNF arena for a show that would be the last time I can say I saw anything close to a true mosh pit for a Green Day show. The show was only a few weeks after their Woodstock performance and as they were on their first trip up.
A little over a year I saw them in a field downtown Jacksonville. It was weird to see parents bring their young kids to stand next to where I wanted to slam dance. I still liked the music, but wasn’t sure if they would have a message for the man growing from the boy a year before. In the years later I always found songs by the band though that I secretly liked but never wanted to admit around my new raver friends.
A few years later the band released a nice, stripped down song called “Good Ridddance” that became an anthem for change and endings. It was maybe their biggest hit and is still played on radio today. The song allowed me to accept Green Day as a band and play their music in public again, though I still stuck with the older stuff. I was the guy who would grab their earlier work and blast it in my CD player as if it was new, then put this new track on for those who needed a hand between the two.
Years later they released the American Idiot album. I don’t think they had came to Jacksonville since the field show, and if they did then I missed it. I decided to get tickets for my girlfriend at the time and myself to attend. As we sat in the cheap seats and looked into the crowd I saw the new Green Day. It was an older band now speaking on political issues and the fears of growing old.
Maybe two years ago I took Pam to attend a show when they came to St Pete. She had never experienced the almost spiritual revival that happens during their live events, and often gave me funny looks when I would pull up jamming out to their disk. Afterwards she understood.
Song of the day by my favorite band is “King for a Day” by Green Day. It’s a live version…
Song of the day by my favorite Prince band is “Darling Nikki” by the Revolution.
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