Green Day’s American Idiot, Hammersmith Apollo, London
Nick Hasted
Nick Hasted has been a film journalist since 1986. He writes about film, music, books and comics for The Independent, Sight & Sound, Uncut and Little White Lies. He has published two books: The Dark Story of Eminem (2002), and You Really Got Me: The Story of The Kinks (2011), both from Omnibus Press.
Wednesday 05 December 2012
The rock opera first grappled with by Pete Townshend and Ray Davies at the end of the 1960s, as rock’s growing thematic seriousness and their own straining ambitions seemed to demand a grander canvas than three-minute pop, was often dashed on the rocks of their hubris.
For a punk rock opera (or more plainly, musical) to bridge this divide during a hit Broadway run is a feat Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong can take great pride in. The veteran Berkeley punk (with book co-writer/director Michael Mayer) is now testing the UK waters, with a tour ending at this venerable rock venue.
Armstrong takes a fundamentalist approach to Green Day’s hit 2004 LP American Idiot, adding a few scattered later songs by the band and lines of dialogue. That album’s themes have a true sense in this setting of youthful and post-September 11 political malaise. Johnny (Alex Nee) is the Jesus of Suburbia, heading to the big city with his friend Tunny (Thomas Hettrick), whose remote-control clicking through US TV’s militarist propaganda leads to a sleight of hand transformation from pants-wearing couch-surfer to uniformed soldier. As Tunny descends, stage-right, into a terrified hell leading to amputation of a leg in Iraq, Johnny is tempted by Whatsername (Alyssa DiPalma), the city girl love of his life, and blond-mohicaned punk Mephistopheles St. Jimmy (a cockily charismatic Trent Saunders). “Last Night On Earth”, during which the star-crossed lovers are bonded by the tube they’ve tied off with as they jack up with heroin, show how uncompromised Armstrong has been in entering the contemporary musical (and the mostly debased form he’s really rivaling, the We Will Rock You-style jukebox show).
The sheer volume of the stage band’s music and the frenetic rush of action provide constant energy. But tunes recalling the 1950s pastiche of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or, during “We’re Coming Home Again”, the Phil Spectoresque Springsteen of Born to Run, have few punk credentials. The indulgent-youths versus dutiful-wives combat of “Too Much Too Soon” also shows how much Armstrong’s characters are Kerouac boys and girls at base, American idiots and ennui unchanged. American Idiot is too traditional in its staging and its heart to be the radical experience one great Sex Pistols single would provide. But Armstrong and Mayer can be congratulated for the hyper-energetic confidence of what they’ve attempted.
Arts & Ents blogs
The Fall ‘Darkness Visible’ – Series 1, episode 2
There is a good many moments in the second episode of this psychological thriller that deserve refle...
‘Vicious’ – Series 1, episode 4
The opening titles squeal ‘Never Can Say Goodbye…’. Oh Lord how I wish I could heave this series off...
Game of Thrones ‘Second Sons’ – Season 3, episode 8
Even though there was a complete absence of our favourite odd couple Brienne and Jaime, we got anoth...
-
'He was lucky he didn't die' - George Michael fell out of speeding car onto M1 motorway, according to eye witness
-
Further Space Oddity: Jeremy Paxman grills British astronaut Major Tim Peake in weirdly aggressive Newsnight interview
-
Coronation Street triumphs over EastEnders at British Soap Awards 2013
-
Cannes Film Festival 2013 review: Behind The Candelabra - Michael Douglas brilliantly captures Liberace's showmanship
-
The Freemasons' Code: Dan Brown reveals the message that told him the door to the lodge is open
- 1 Gay couple beaten in park urge MPs to moderate language on gay marriage
- 2 After woman sells virginity for $780,000, here are the results of our prostitution survey
- 3 China agrees to impose carbon targets by 2016
- 4 Exclusive: Championship clubs set to push for safe-standing trials
- 5 Far-right French historian, 78-year-old Dominique Venner, commits suicide in Notre Dame in protest against gay marriage
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
How to say ‘I’m a sellout’
Why clubs are keen to take a stand


Comments