Green Day's performance of “21 Guns” on the Grammys telecast (see above) was big and bold and lush and melodic, though actually only about half as interesting as the stage version I saw in October. The show (which includes all the songs off “American Idiot,” a couple of b-sides and a few tracks, like “21 Guns,” off “21st Century Breakdown”) is a stridently, undeniably political critique of American culture at the end of the millennium, to borrow a phrase from Rent, the musical this show most borrows from itself. The Bush Administration and the US military-industrial complex are equally the villains of the piece, colluding with the mainstream media to create an atmosphere of terminal hopelessness.
The rest is here:
Green Day’s uber-political rock opera makes national debut on the Grammys
