Flashback: Green Day Rip Through ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ in 2010
The news came out this week that the Hella Mega stadium tour with Green Day, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy is going ahead as planned this summer. It’s a bit of a surprise since Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, and Poison were booked at many of the same stadiums in the same exact time period, but they recently bumped their tour to 2022.
The decision to go ahead with the Hella Mega tour is part of an avalanche of 2021 concert announcements in the past few weeks, including tours by Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Dead & Co., Genesis, Alice Cooper and Ace Frehley, and Korn and Staind. There have also been a ton of major festival announcements. All of this is, of course, tied to a lifting of lockdown restrictions nationwide thanks to falling virus numbers.
A return to normal life post-pandemic is going to be very gradual, but the launch of Hella Mega in Dallas on July 24th will seem like a key step for music fans of a certain age. There have been outdoor shows by the likes of the Beach Boys and Jimmy Buffett in Florida during the past few weeks, but nothing remotely on the scale of Hella Mega. The stadiums the tour is hitting hold about 50,000 fans apiece, and they won’t be limiting their capacities. (For a mere $380, you can stand in the pit at New York’s Citi Field.)
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For a preview of what the show ought to feel like, here’s video of Green Day playing “Jesus of Suburbia” at Tokyo’s Saitama Super Arena on January 2010. They may have started their career at tiny punk clubs around the Bay Area, but they adapted quite nicely to the big venues once Dookie exploded in 1994. And after American Idiot brought them to a whole new level in 2004, they’ve become one of the great stadium acts in rock.
We’re still waiting to hear about the IndieLands’ plans for rescheduling their 2020 North American shows. Things have also been very quiet on the Guns N’ Roses front even though they still have stadium dates on the books for this summer. It’s very possible that both of those tours wind up taking place in 2022. But at the very least, Green Day, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy will be out there this summer. Let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come.
