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Monday, May 27, 2002

By Ed Masley , Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

Green Day opening for Blink-182 is kind of like the Buzzcocks being made to open Green Day's "Dookie" tour in '94. Of course, it puts more bodies in the seats. But where's the sense of history, the sense of justice?

To their credit, the members of Green Day didn't seem to care much either way as they plowed through the hits for a crowd of 15,157 at the Post-Gazette Pavilion Saturday. In fact, they worked the stage like it was their show, bashing out such timeless hooks as "Basket Case," "Welcome to Paradise," "She" and "Longview" with a reckless sense of urgency that would have made it feel like 1994 again if "Waiting," pulled from Green Day's latest album, hadn't been the most inspired moment of their set.

They opened with an even newer song, "Maria." Recorded for last year's hits collection, it already had the feel of one of Green Day's concert staples, fast and raucous, with some killer fills from drummer Tre Cool and a sound so massive, I assumed it had a lot to do with the second guitarist Green Day never introduced until he went away and "Longview" sounded just as massive.

It's hard to imagine a band in modern rock that could have stocked a 90-minute set with half as many worthwhile hits as Green Day did. And there were hits they didn't even get a chance to play, but those they did included "Brain Stew," the thrashing-est "Jaded" ever, "When I Come Around," "Hitchin' A Ride," "Minority" and a solo electric performance by Billie Joe Armstrong of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)."

The hits alone would be enough to entertain your average crowd, of course, but half the entertainment value of a Green Day set will always be the Armstrong show. The man was born to entertain, clowning his way through all the greatest rock-star moves in history, from Elvis Presley's pelvic thrust to Roger Daltrey's spinning mike to Jimi Hendrix's guitar behind the head. He even dropped and did a breakdance move. But the highlight of Armstrong's shenanigans came at the end of a spirited cover of "Shout." The crown he'd donned to lead the band in "King for a Day" still on his head, he dropped down to his knees, and as he knelt there, an assistant brought a cape out, draping it over his shoulders in a punk-rock tribute to the great James Brown. It was hilarious.

He also did that thing where he assembles a band out of audience members during Operation Ivy's "Knowledge." Saturday, he took the gesture one step further, letting Matt Tanner of New Castle keep the Fender Fat Strat he'd been playing (after mistakenly telling the crowd his name was Ben).

At one point, Armstrong even stuck his arm inside his pants and pretended to pleasure himself in an obvious bid to keep up with the grade-school humor of the guys in Blink-182.

He would have had to try a whole lot harder.

While they didn't have a flaming F-word sign this year and played three songs before the night's first penis joke, they didn't send their fans home disappointed, either. There were jokes about them sleeping with each other's fathers and a song we'll just call "Grandpa" that bassist Mark Hoppus explained would be the song all the critics were talking about the next day when they wrote "All Blink-182 did was sing a bunch of bad words." While I hate to disappoint him, if I did say all they did was sing a bunch of bad words, the song I'd be talking about would be the song whose title I can't print here.

But in truth, that isn't all they did. They also found the time to play some really catchy songs, although the mess that was their sound obscured a number of their choicest hooks, the best of which were found in "Rock Show," "Dammit," "What's My Age Again," "First Date" and "All the Small Things."

And they rocked those hooks with energy to spare. At one point, Hoppus even ran a couple laps around the stage.

But it'll be a while before they have enough good songs to turn in a set that's as solid as Green Day's.

And by then, their drummer will have hopefully had time to learn some taste from watching Cool.

Saves the Day preceded Green Day with a hook-intensive set that wasn't punk so much as power-pop. They even had the boy-next-door appeal that tends to come with sounding like the Cheap Trick of your generation, not to mention a singer whose voice is just as capable of hitting all the pretty notes as Robin Zander's ever was.