by Daniel V. Garcia
Daily Lobo
Punk rock was a grass-roots form of music founded on a resolute and uncompromising do-it-yourself ethic.
Since its inception, it has become as exploitable a form of music as hip-hop and rock. The obviousness of this achieves a new starkness as one views Green Day's CD/DVD, Bullet in a Bible.
It features a concert at the Milton Keynes National Bowl in England. The CD is the audio equivalent of the DVD. The show opens with the band posing in mock stances of grandeur while Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" theme - made famous in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" - roars in the background. Sadly, one suspects that the band is at least half serious when the members stand like demigods before the worshipful attendance of 130,000 people.
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In an interview, Billy Joe Armstrong proclaims the immensity of the event.
"This is the biggest gig - pretty much - in the history of punk rock," he said.
Mike Dirnt later echoes this sentiment.
"Green Day is synonymous with good music," he said.
Even the band's poignant songs critical of American politics and religion contrast sharply with the rock arena context in which they play, the grand irony being when Armstrong sings about being born and raised by hypocrites. As can be expected with a show of this magnitude, the production values of the DVD and CD are top notch. The film edits are expertly done, as they capture the band members in all of their goofy glory while bouncing from black and white grainy 35 mm stock to color film. The energy level of the band is high as the guys jump around the stage in full awareness and command of their status as entertainers. Camera shots to the crowd show British youths throwing up the horns while girls scream for Armstrong like girls once did for Elvis in a Las Vegas nightclub.
Cuts to interviews and backstage life are interesting, especially when the band visits the Imperial War Museum in London and finds a Bible pierced with a bullet - presumably from either the first or second World War. Dramatic tension reaches its peak when the band stands in front of a replica of the atomic bomb that was destined for Hiroshima - and then pounds on it.
This moment, however, quickly gives way to the expected tomfoolery and antics typical of rock star documentaries as Armstrong dry humps the camera and Tre Cool snorts the sprinkles off of doughnuts. The band had a real opportunity to elaborate on its political and religious views with this DVD, and instead the band squandered it to perpetuate the inanity founded upon Dookie. Of course, they may not have had a lot of say in what went on the disc as it is presumed that its marketers were cautious about its content. After all, it's a far cry from the DIY days when bands like the Misfits made their own records, printed their own T-shirts, booked their own shows and moved their own merchandise.
Call Green Day what you want. But punk rock it ain't.
