Originally posted by ylikone
Green Day were fine back when they were newish. Getting popular and having to make radio-friendly-crap kills most bands in my opinion.
While i agree that they were more palatable back when they were new, if you listen to even their 39/smooth stuff it was always pop (bubblegum) oriented, light and ready for mainstream access. Selling out was only an issue for me insomuch as the liner notes for \"39/smoothed out slappy hours\" bothered to reprint a very hardnosed letter they sent to major record execs telling them they just wouldn\'t leave lookout records as a matter of principle (I can\'t remember the exact phrasing, but they bascially said \"They\'re Our Freinds!!!\").
Anywho. I saw them live in a grange hall in Mckinleyville, CA back around the time 39/smooth was making the rounds. The stage was like, a foot tall, and they headlined with, like, Fifteen and a half-dozen crappy local bands. they were tight, but pissed most of us off because their set was only 45 minutes long. Still, they were tight, and blew my doors off with their energy.
A couple years back I saw them in much less intimate setting in San Francisco, and I got to say, \"Big\" Green Day is far less interesting to listen to than \"lil\" Green Day was back in the day. It was disappointing, to put it mildly. They threw out standard rock phrases, seemed to meander through one pretentious tune after another, and I left the show feeling pretty cheated. I\'m not sure what the word is for it, but I reacted to their enormous stage, and overblown egos negatively.
So, there. I\'m a qualified \"admirer\" of Green Day, I suppose.
