When I saw Offspring at Release Athens Festival last year, I thought to myself "Now, if I could only see Green Day as well". I had somehow made a connection in my mind between these two bands, probably because they were both punk bands of the 90's. Well somebody out there must have been thinking the same thing, because a few months later Green Day were announced. So, it goes without saying: I had to go!
I first noticed Green Day when I heard "Basket Case" back in the 90's. In fact I saw the video on MTV. And my first thought was "This sounds like The Jam!". The Jam were of course my favourite band in the early 80's and that's why I liked the song. The next song of theirs that I heard was "When I Come Around". This of course sounded nothing like The Jam, but I liked the song on its own merit. The rest is, as they say, history.
On the day of the festival, I decided to get there earlier than usual. The reason was that one of the support bands were Inhaler. I googled them and found out that their singer was Bono's son. Yes THAT Bono! So while I was approaching the venue, Inhaler were already playing and on hearing them I thought "My God! It's Bono who's singing!". Indeed their voices are so similar. And when I approached the stage I noticed that he looks a lot like his father did when U2 were first starting back in the late 70's and early 80's.
Next up were the Kooks. Now, I had heard that name before and I thought it was in the line up of one of the Greek festivals. However they said that this was their first time in Greece. So I guess it must have been on the line up of a UK festival. In fact as I was writing this I decided to look into the matter. And why was it that every time I heard their name The Killers came to mind? Turns out I was right. They had played at the Hard Rock Calling festival in 2009 supporting The Killers. And I was there! During their set however, I was at the other stage watching Echo And The Bunnymen.
At the end of The Kooks set I headed towards the food stands because I had noticed that my favourite Greek food chain, Jackaroo, was serving food there. So I helped myself to some fried chicken fingers.
By that time Green Day were due to appear soon. I headed back to the stage and their set intro started with a medley of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Pop while a "Drunk Bunny" was dancing on stage. Then the band came on stage and they launched into "American Idiot". My two favourites, "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around" were played back-to-back, followed a bit later by what seems to be everyone else's favourite Green Day song "Wake Me Up When September Ends" which everybody posts on social media on the first day of September. The highlight of the night was something else though: the snippet of "Iron Man" that they played as a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne who was alive at the time but had appeared in his farewell performance at the Back To The Beginning festival in Birmingham the night before. They also played a snippet of Tom Petty's "Free Falling" as well.
To sum up, the crowd enjoyed it immensely and my only complaint is probably the ticket price which seemed a bit expensive if you compared it with the ticket prices of other festivals or indeed the price of Ejekt Festival's other date.
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SETLISTS:
INHALER
01. Dublin In Ecstasy
02. Love Will Get You There
03. Billy (Yeah Yeah Yeah)
04. A Question Of You
05. Just To Keep You Satisfied
06. Who's Your Money On? (Plastic House)
07. X-Ray
08. It Won't Always Be Like This
09. Your House
10. My Honest Face
THE KOOKS
01. Ooh La
02. She Moves In Her Own Way
03. See Me Now
04. Bad Habit
05. Junk Of The Heart (Happy)
06. Seaside
07. Never Know
08. Naïve
GREEN DAY
01. American Idiot
02. Holiday
03. Know Your Enemy
04. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
05. One Eyed Bastard
06. Longview
07. Welcome To Paradise
08. Hitchin' A Ride
09. Coming Clean
10. Brain Stew
11. St. Jimmy
12. Dilemma
13. 21 Guns
14. Minority
15. Basket Case
17. Saviors
19. Jesus Of Suburbia
20. Bobby Sox
21. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
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