Green Day
At GM Place, on Saturday, July 4

Some five songs into its exhausting set at the Garage on Saturday night, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong asked the all-ages crowd, “Do you guys remember the Nappy Dugout?” No response. “How about the Cruel Elephant?” he continued. Still nothing. “Huh,” he shrugged. “Shit changes.”

Yes, it sure does. Green Day has gone from being a superficially charming pop punk three-piece familiar with gone (and apparently forgotten) hole-in-the-wall venues here in Vancouver, to pop-punk bazillionaires who can fill GM Place. And it’s only taken 20 years.

More significantly, after some drifting, Green Day made itself relevant again with American Idiot, the pissed-off 2004 concept album that threw some blue notes into the band’s chunky, three-chord attack. Those superficial pleasures subsequently became longer lasting, and new album 21st Century Breakdown is like an encore to that achievement, for better or worse (better in my opinion).

With cyclone energy at its back for the second night of its world tour, the band somehow managed to bring all sides together. Green Day put on an enormous, fuck-off rock show absolutely befitting an outfit whose last two albums have drawn comparisons to the Who and Queen. Yeah, the pyro got to be a little fuckin’ nerve-wracking after a while, thanks, but the band’s basic, get-in-the-van goofball side was there, too.

A decisive and powerful first half of the night was given over to those last two albums, with “Know Your Enemy” standing out as an awesome slab of slashing, punk rock polemicism, while “The Static Age” received a surprise visit from a saxophone, thanks to keyboardist Jason Freese (who joined guitarists Jason White, and Jeff Matika in the expanded lineup).

Starting with “Geek Stink Breath”, the greatest hits portion of the show was no less driving, but Armstrong orchestrated a deft mood change when he picked some kid out of the crowd to sing “Longview”, which the amped up little fucker did perfectly.

Armstrong also conducted his on-point bandmates through an improvised sax solo, again from Freese, that took flight into be-bop as the essentially ridiculous punk-polka of “King for a Day” transitioned into the Isley Brothers “Shout”. If you hadn’t caught Green Day since a 1991 Cruel Elephant gig, you might have been a little surprised to hear this.

After winding up with “21 Guns”—possibly the most sugary protest song ever written—and the double-plus Clash flameout of “American Eulogy”, Armstrong dragged another dude on stage for the encore. This time, a gangly blonde from Surrey by the name of Christian was handed Armstrong’s guitar and told to play “Jesus of Suburbia”–and again, miraculously, the guy nailed it. Or they possibly dropped him right out of the mix. I’m guessing the former.

Predictably enough, Armstrong brought the five-song encore to a close with a solo “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, but even that over-played stinker sounded good in this context. Besides, nothing was going to rub out the explosive fun of the previous two hours, or the fact that some kid from Surrey kicked so much ass during the greatest five minutes of his life.