My Green Day American Idiot Broadway Musical Review (12/22/12 Utica, NY)

Inspiration? What is inspiration?

I like to think inspiration is what shapes you as an artist, kinda helps you come into your own, ya know? You can follow some ideas from the past yet put your own twist on them. I like to think my inspiration comes from many different aspects of music. For one I am a HUGE fan of rap, underground rap to be exact. I don’t like much trendy rap music at all as a matter of fact. There is one band though that has inspired me for about 18 years of my life, I can remember like it was yesterday. It was 1994, I had come into my own (for listening to my own kinda music anyway) It’s that point in your life when you don’t just listen to the music your parents are playing. My friend at the time, Marc-Anthony had come over to my house and said “you gotta listen to this tape”, low and behold, it was Green Day’s dookie cassette tape. We played it at a lower volume because I can remember playing “Longview” and it proclaimed “AND I SMELL LIKE SHITTTTTTT!” I can remember being absolutely enthralled in this music, I needed to own this album. Well the time had come and I was able to purchase my very first Compact Disc, which at the time was like a brand new technology. You can guess what I went out and bought, yup, it was that 35 minute long masterpiece, dookie. I played the shit out of that CD I tell you. It was like love at first sight, I couldn’t get enough of this band, their sound and what they were saying just spoke to me. I bought as much music as they put out, any import CD with a b-side on it, I owned it, and I still have them to this day. My Green Day collection is massive. I have everything, from Billie Joe’s very first record “Look For Love” from when he was like 4 years old to a massive collection of live bootleg concert CD’s, posters, autographs, promotional merchandise, vinyl records, and ticket stubs and memories of Green Day concerts I’ve been to, plus I have 2 Green Day tattoos. I still buy Green Day merchandise to this very day. Every time I’m in a record store I go right to the Green Day section to see if they have something I don’t.

I’ve even made some Green Day references in my music. My newest CD, PE (Pulmonary Embolism) has the track E.S.D. on it which I wrote “I was a basketcase, before I said good riddance, but now I’m trying to find Billie Joe, somebody gimmie his digits”. I think it’s crazy someone who has been rapping for 14 years has Green Day as one of his major influences. It really trips people out in interviews when I tell them that.

Well fast forward about 16 years (I know, it’s a long time gap, but this is my story)

I heard Green Day was turning American Idiot into a musical. They started small, but it ended up on Broadway, I couldn’t believe it, but my favorite band of all time made a fucking Broadway musical out of their biggest album since dookie. I wanted to go to Broadway to see it so bad too. I was going to try and make plans to see it when Billie Joe was playing the role of St. Jimmy. Well, that never came to be, as things happen, as life happens, you realize you can’t do it all, so I was never able to go see this musical on Broadway.

It finally happened, I get an e-mail from The Idiot Club (Green Day’s fan club) that The American Idiot Broadway Musical is coming to UTICA, NEW YORK. My jaw dropped, for real though! I couldn’t believe it, after all these years of being a fan of this band, something Green Day related comes to my hometown. You have to understand, where I live is not the biggest city, hell it’s run by a bunch of idiots, maybe that’s why Green Day chose The Stanley Theater to host this HUGE show. Not only did they chose to do 2 nights of this musical here, they came here for 12 days to rehearse and do some tech related stuff before this musical goes on tour WORLDWIDE! I wonder what they thought of Utica? I mean, it’s not that bad here, we do have some cool things to see, just not much to do, which is why it was so amazing to see this gigantic cast and crew come here to do this.

It was about 6:30pm, Me and Jenn, headed over to my best friend, Evans house to meet up with him and his wife. We wanted to get up and chill a little before the show. We headed out about 7pm to get to the venue.  I was sparing no expense on this, I wanted THE BEST. After 17 years of being a Green Day fan and knowing this was a once in a lifetime thing and not a concert where General Admission tickets are the standard I got FRONT ROW, not just front row, FRONT AND CENTER! Tickets 101 & 102. These tickets were like the golden tickets in Willy Wonka. I even remember the women who sold them to me said, we have less expensive tickets for sale. I said are you kidding me? This is the biggest thing to come to Utica since Elvis was going to play here back in the 70’s.

So we get in and go to our seats, all I could think was wow! This is crazy, then we sat and it really kicked in! We were so close, like right on top of it! It was like a dream come true. The venue was packed, you could just feel the excitement in the air. People are out to have a good time and all that energy is something you will never feel unless you are there. So we wait for a little bit, just get settled in. We are looking up at this massive curtain, where we were sitting just put it in to perspective, WOW!

The curtain goes up and I know we are in for something big. I’ve seen some pictures of the musical online as well as a few videos, but nothing could have prepared me for this amazing stage design. I have seen some truly awesome stage sets in my time of going to concerts, but this just takes the cake, it was massive. They had about 25 to 35 TV screens laid into the set design, a huge staircase in the background and a lot of other things to really set the scene. It started off with a little dialog, but it was a good flow.

They kicked in with American Idiot, I knew this was going to be something special at that moment. I’m sure this is nothing like any other Broadway show, I was in a world of my own watching this, not to mention how close we were, my focus was just trying to take in everything. Being a performer myself and having been on many stages in my life I like to pay a lot of attention on how they make the show happen and look at every little detail. There was no detail to small left out in this. While I was still trying to put my brains back in my head they went into one of my favorite new Green Day songs, Jesus of Suburbia. I’m The Son Of Rage And Love! How true is that? I remember how I felt when I heard this song for the first time and saw the video they made for it and thought, I wish they would make a movie of this album, but they did one better and turned it into a full fledged musical, which carry’s on the story fairly well. They really don’t stray away from the American Idiot album, it really is mostly the entire album with a few exceptions. They did a good job of mixing some songs together which I thought was the BOMB! I believe I was singing along the entire time, people must of thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care.

The story is great, it’s about lost love, government injustice, growing up and leaving home, working for the man. Who can’t relate to that?

If you know the American Idiot album the plot of the play makes perfect seance. You have Johnny, St. Jimmy and Whatshername, who are really the main characters of the play. Johnny meets Whatshername but St. Jimmy is taking over. It’s a story of a lost love, but it’s so much more than that. As humans we have all been through something like this story, we’ve all had our own Whatshername in our life at one time or another. I don’t want to go to much into detail about the story line because you just need to see it yourself, but it’s really something. From start to finish my eyes never left the stage.

You had people flying in from above the stage. That really blew my mind, it may be a custom to do that on Broadway, but I don’t watch Broadway musicals. I’m a rapper. No show I’ve ever seen involved someone flying in from above the stage.

They ended the show with “Whatshername” which I knew is how it would go, that is how American Idiot the album ends and it’s an ending like most relationships, ya know? “Remember, whatever, it seams like forever ago, the regrets are useless in my mind and she’s in my head, I must confess, and in the darkest night, if my memory serves me right, I’ll never turn back time, forgetting you but not the time”

The cast took a bow and the curtain closed. Much to my surprise, the curtain opened and the whole cast had guitars and started playing “Good Riddance”.

The story was very intriguing, the actors all had great voices. You could really see how much work was put into this show. I’ve never been to a musical before except The Nutcracker back in grade school, but I don’t remember that too well. This on the other hand is something I will tell my children about.

I know this will make my Christmas that much better, this was kind of a Christmas gift to Myself and my Girl. I’m so glad we were able to go. Hell I’m glad they picked Utica, NY to really start the Worldwide tour for this massive production. The only other thing that would be great is seeing Green Day perform at The Utica Auditorium, maybe in the next 10 years, lol.

I hope you enjoyed my review of this incredible show, I know I enjoyed every minute of it live. If you get the chance to see this, please go out and do so. There are not to many things I rave about on my web site unless it’s about some new thing I’m coming out with, but this is something people need to go out and see.

Also just like any concert, it would not be complete without merchandise. They had, The Musical CD, T-Shirts, Hats, Hoodies, and a Program for sale. Unlike a lot of Green Day fans, I’m rocking a 3XL, which they never sell, so I can never rock and Green Day merchandise. It’s very unfortunate, but I get by, lol

Thank you for picking Utica, NY to come perform this at!


Amy, Evan, & Myself

My name is B-CIDE and I’m a rapper! Much love to Green Day and the whole cast of this musical.

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