Billie Joe brings out acoustic "oldies" in Prague

A couple days ago Green Day played an amazing show in Prague, which included such live rarities as Viva La Gloria!, Maria, Stuck With Me, Paper Lanterns, and Extraordinary Girl. A link to the full set-list can be found on the tour page.

But the coolest of all that was Billie playing an acoustic solo of Redundant and Words I Might Have Ate. The two songs were recorded and posted on YouTube and can be watched below.



Source : Green Day Authority

Green Day play new song during sound check

Below is a video of Green Day doing their soundcheck at Marlay Park in Dublin earlier today. In the video they play a new song we haven't heard before. I don't have a title, but "Stay the Night" seems likely/appropriate. The song starts at about 30 seconds into the video, and it's really good.

The video comes from Mellyboots on Forum GDC,Another forum user Eldoon, posted the lyrics , so you can read those there as well. There's also a link to download an mp3 version of it there.



Source : Green Day Authority

Jimmy Kimmel, Much Music Awards

Green Day's performance of Know Your Enemy at the Tony Awards was included as a part of Jimmy Kimmel's weekly series "Unnecessary Censorship." The clip, which starts at about 1:00 into the video,You can see the video below :



And in other news, the MuchMusic Video Awards took place the other night and Green Day's video '21 Guns' was nominated for International Video of the Year. The video sadly lost to non-other than the Jonas Brothers, The full list of winners can be read by clicking here.

Source : Green Day Authority

'Green Day: Rock Band' got it right

New 'Green Day' game has no filler songs — are you listening, 'Guitar Hero'?

Green Day: Rock Band is exactly what a band- specific music game should be.
It comes as no surprise that the minds at Harmonix and MTV Games succeeded, given their terrific work on The Beatles: Rock Band.

The Guitar Hero franchise should take note, because Green Day fans got what Van Halen fans wanted with Guitar Hero: Van Halen. And what would that be? Their favorite band.

It sounds simple. If you're going to make a rhythm game devoted to a single band, make it the best possible experience for fans of that band. In the case of Green Day, Harmonix released two full albums, Dookie and American Idiot, and the rest of 21st Century Breakdown, which previously had a six-song track pack released.

They also peppered in a handful of songs from the band's less popular mid-career albums, for a total of 47 tracks.

[Full article at Lexington Herald]

Source : Green Day.com

Green Day interview about vinyl records

Green Day was recently interviewed for a NBC news piece on vinyl records.You can see the video below :

The Green Day part starts at about 1 minute and 30 seconds into the segment.



Source : Green Day Authority

BBC Meet Green Day competition

BBC Radio 1 is currently holding a competition to win your own backstage dressing room and a chance to hang out with Green Day before their show at Wembley Stadium in London.

To enter to win all you need to do is listen to the Chris Moyles Show and wait for him to ring his buzzer as your cue to call in.

Complete details on the contest can be found on BBC.co.uk by clicking here.

'When It's Time' single

The song 'When It's Time' has been released as a single to a couple countries in Europe (Italy, the UK, and more) and has been getting some pretty good airplay. The single is also showing up in the UK iTunes store.

Here is the album artwork which I think is pretty cool. Its definitely the American Idiot era style. Click the picture at the right to view a larger version.

Italian radio station Radio 105 is reporting that it will be a global release but they do not mention when. The article can be read by clicking here.

Billboard.com interview for Rock Band

Green Day recently sat down and did an interview with Billboard.com for Rock Band: Green Day.

With a hit Broadway show and now their own edition of the "Rock Band" franchise, Green Day is establishing themselves as a punk rock brand.

"I just like being diverse and trying new things as far as Green Day is concerned," says front man Billie Joe Armstrong.

The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum trio joins the Beatles as the only other act immortalized in "Rock Band"; the video game is being released next Tuesday.

"It's like a glorified karaoke machine," Armstrong said. "Or 'Mortal Kombat' with guitars."

As players progress through the game, they gain access into the band's media vault, where they can unlock rare collectible images, and over 40 minutes of unreleased video. These include performances, outtakes, interviews, and even a tour of their transportation.

 '"You see old footage of us from the Bookmobile, and weird old performances and stuff no one's looked at in almost twenty years," Armstrong said.'

Bits from those old performances help recreate the kinetic energy of the band playing live. Developers went through many hours of footage to get it right, and even used stand-in performers to fine-tune the computer-generated version on the punk rock trio.

"As far as video games are concerned it's pretty close," Armstrong said. "The Beatles wrote some of the greatest songs ever, but it wasn't challenging to get their movement down (on 'Rock Band') because they didn't really move that much."

Regarding their computer-generated likeness, the consensus was positive.

"Oh man, we're hot on computers," said drummer Tre Cool, while Dirnt joked: "I don't know if they got enough pimples on me."

In the game, players perform in three different venues, each significant to the band. There's a punk rock club, which is an amalgamation of various places Green Day played in the early days; the Fox Theater in their hometown in Oakland, California; and the site of their first stadium show.

"The Milton Keynes (stadium) show was quite momentous for us. It actually was the concert that was filmed for 'Bullet in a Bible," Dirnt said, referring to the live DVD that was recorded in 2005 on the band's "American Idiot" tour.

It was at the cast party for the Berkley, California, version of the Broadway musical "American Idiot," now nominated for three Tony awards including best musical, where the band was introduced to "Rock Band."

"Everybody got drunk and was playing 'Beatles Rock Band,'" Armstrong said. "We were just having a good time with it."

But that doesn't always equate to success. After playing the game for the first time over a year ago, and experiencing their own edition, how good a player does Armstrong consider himself?

"I suck," he said. "I'm not very good at it."

Billie Joe at Tony Awards

GreenDay.com has posted a New York Post article talking about this year's Tony Awards. The article states that Billie Joe Armstrong will be attending the awards and that a song from the American Idiot musical will be included in the famous opening act which is a melody of "Pop Songs You Might Not Care Are on Broadway."

The Tony Awards air live on CBS, Sunday, June 13th at 8:00pm EST.

Green Day have a concert the day before (the 12th) in Austria so there is a little confusion on whether or not Billie will actually be in attendance at the awards show. We will keep you posted.

The full article can be read by clicking here.

Green Day: Rock Band Demo

A demo of Green Day: Rock Band is now available through the XBOX 360 Market Place. It contains two songs: 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and 'Welcome to Paradise'.

Watch the video below :

Welcome to Paradise :


And Boulevard of Broken Dreams :


The demo will be available to download from the PlayStation Network later today. No word on a demo for the Wii (though they often don't release demos released there).

Drama Desk Awards, Serena Williams

Sunday night, the Drama Desk award winners were announced and Michael Mayer, director of the American Idiot musical, took home the Outstanding Director of a Musical award.

'American Idiot' was also nominated for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Orchestrations, but lost in both categories.

The full list of winners can be viewed by clicking here.

And in other news, Tennis X recently interviewed American tennis player Serena Williams and asked her about Twittering. She mentions Green Day in her response which can be read below.

'For me, I follow Green Day on Twitter, and whenever they tweet I get incredibly excited. I'm like, Oh, my God. I'm so happy and I really like to know what's going on in their lives because I'm a die hard Green Day fanatic.' 

Glee cast stops by the American Idiot Musical

Some cast members of the TV show Glee stopped by the American Idiot Musical at St. James Theater in New York City on May 18 to watch the show. Full article from Broadway.com

'The cast of Glee is currently on the road for a mini-tour (with five shows at Radio City later this month), but when stars Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Jenna Ushkowitz and Amber Riley had a night off they decided to do what their Glee character’s love most…see a Broadway show! On May 18 the crew headed to the St. James Theatre to check out the Tony-nominated Green Day rock opera American Idiot and visit some old friends. Michele's former Spring Awakening co-star John Gallagher Jr. leads the Idiot cast'

You can view some photos from their visit on Broadway.com

21CB One Year Anniversary, Rock Band opening video

One year ago today, Green Day's eighth studio album, 21st Century Breakdown was released. The 18-track album, which was produced by Butch Vig, includes the hit singles 'Know Your Enemy' and '21 Guns'. The album won the band the Best Rock Album award at the 52nd Grammy Awards.

Other than 'Know Your Enemy' and '21 Guns,' 21st Century Breakdown has been the host for the singles/videos 'East Jesus Nowhere', '21st Century Breakdown', and also the current single 'Last of the American Girls'.

Billie Joe describe the album as...

'A snapshot of the era in which we live as we question and try to make sense of the selfish manipulation going on around us, whether it be the government, religion, media or frankly any form of authority.'

Also, last night, GameTrailers TV had an exclusive premiere of the opening sequence of Green Day: Rock Band. It can be watched below.



 

Jason Freese featured in 'High Voltage Tattoo'

Jason Freese, one of the back-up members of Green Day who plays keyboard when the band is on tour is featured in the tattoo book, High Voltage Tattoo, by the famous female tattoo artist, Kat Von D, for his "Holiday Bombs" tattoo.

'It symbolizes man destroying earth. The last tour I went on with Green Day, that art was behind us on the JumboTron dropping bombs on random things as we played. I like what it stood for and felt it would make a unique tattoo!'

You can read a scan of the page that Jason is on by clicking the image to the right.

The book is available to purchase on Amazon.com by clicking here.


 

Video of Green Day's Late Night performance

Last night, Green Day performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. They performed a cover of a Rolling Stones song called 'Rip This Joint.' The video can be watched below. I must say that it was an awesome performance.




 

Green Day featured in Rolling Stone

Green Day's American Idiot musical is featured in the May 13th edition of Rolling Stone magazine. The article takes you though opening night of the musical and includes comments from the band. You can read scans of the article by clicking on the thumbnails below.



You can pick up a copy of the magazine at your local news stand or online by clicking here. 

 

Green Day on 'Late Night' tonight

Just a reminder that Green Day will be performing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight at 12:35 Eastern on NBC. They will be performing a Rolling Stones song called 'Rip This Joint.' The Rolling Stones' version can be listened to by clicking here.

Green Day is covering the Stones song for "Late Night's" celebration of the re-release of the album "Exile on Main Street" all week long. Other performers this week include Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow, Phish, and the Rolling Stones.

Green Day's portion was filmed on May 6, and some of our forumers got to go. They played "It's Fuck Time", "St. Jimmy" and "Last of the American Girls"- - but I not sure if all of them were filmed, or if NBC will post them anywhere.

Green Day On Ice video

The people over at LandlineTV have made a hilarious video for "Green Day On Ice".

From Playbill.com:

'Green Day's next project could skate to an arena near you. OK, not really, but that's what the sketch writers at LandlineTV have concocted for our viewing pleasure.' 

Interview with Tre, The Hives opening for Green Day

Game Informer recently sat down with Tre to talk about the upcoming Green Day: Rock Band, which is due out June 8th. The interview ranges from bonus material, motion capture, venues, and the potential for future DLC.

Here is Tre explaining the process of how 1039/Smooth and Kerplunk could become DLC:

'Yeah, there are select songs from other records. We wanted to get stuff from 39/Smooth and Kerplunk! on there, too, but the tapes are really old. I don't know if you know about analog tapes, but to transfer them you need to play them. They are kind of stuck together right now. You have to "bake" them, and then you have one chance to run it over the machine to transfer it to make stems. Once it hits the head, it comes off the other side shredded. We're making sure we have the right dudes to do it. We're actually booking it; there's one place in Burbank that still does it. We're going to bite the bullet and shred our old tapes and put it to digital... So, we're going to have more stuff going through the pipeline later, like the old records once we get them on digital and get the stems. Hopefully, we'll come up with some new looks.' 

The full article can be read by clicking here.

In other news, it has been announced that Swedish band The Hives will be the second opening-act at Green Day's concert at Kylasaari on June 8th in Helsinki, Finland. Tickets can be purchased by clicking here. The first opening-act is Joan Jet.

 

Green Day interview in Q Magazine

The newest issue of Q Magazine has an interview with the band, mainly talking about the musical cast album. When asked about how a musical fits with the "punk ethic", Billie Joe says 

'It's definitely a clash of two worlds, but the truth of the album is it's political, it's dirty, it's got drug scenes and self-destruction. There's no possible way you could sugar-coat that for the stage, and there are no Disney moments in the show. If people don't get it, if they want to criticize us, that's fine, but I'm into the whole experience of it. It's been really inspiring.'

When asked about the next Green Day album, they mention it won't be coming anytime in the next year, but he did say this about the 10 demo songs they have recorded so far,

' definitely Green Day, but with a touch of Foxboro Hot Tubs, too.'

We can only hope we'll get a chance to listen to a demo, because that sounds fucking awesome.

You can read the article through the scans below.