American Idiot: the Musical

I went to see a preview performance last night of the new stage musical adaptation of Green Day’s album American Idiot. Technically it doesn’t open for another week or two, and I’m not sure when the “official” reviews will hit the papers. I can’t resist writing about it early though. Don’t worry. I won’t ruin anything for you.

I should preface things by the fact that American Idiot is one of my favorite albums of all time. As such, I really didn’t let myself create any expectations around the show. I didn’t really read anything about it. I didn’t let myself get too excited about it. I mean, it wouldn’t be them singing. What would it be like really? I didn’t even realize until the day of the show that it included some songs from Green Day’s new album 21st Century Breakdown.

I was fortunate enough to have really good seats. Diana and I were in the 3rd row, center. Close enough to see each little sweat bead roll down the actors’ faces. Close enough to see every expression. Close enough to see the second set of stage underwear they had on under their costume underwear. Close enough to have all of our senses completely over stimulated as opposed to the run-of-the-mill over stimulated you’d get at the back of the house.

Damn, it was good.

They do a really great job of taking a fairly abstract narrative from the album, tweaking it and adapting it, and turning it into something a little bit more concrete, a little bit more followable without making it too “on the nose”. They weave in songs from the new album as well as a few b-sides from American Idiot to tell the story of 3 friends as they move from youth into adulthood. It’s a coming of age story with a punk sensibility. Sure some of the character development in the beginning is clunky, but by the end all is forgiven.

Billie Joe Armstrong is one of the best songwriters, perhaps ever, but certainly of his generation. There, I said it. And if you doubt that statement at all, wait until about halfway through the show when they sing the amazingly beautiful love song "When It’s Time". What? You’re a big Green Day fan and you’ve never heard of that song? That’s because Billie’s never recorded it. He wrote it for his now wife when he was just 19. If he’d written that song for me, I would’ve married him. Or at least let him have his way with me; although, that might have been awkward because he’s so short.

I know he’s so short because, as Diana and I were walking out, we discovered that the person who had been sitting behind us who, out of the corner of my eye, had looked like a short teen-aged punk youth in an over-sized ball cap and hoodie was actually Billie Joe Armstrong. We finally noticed because we were right in front of him and his wife as we were all walking up the aisle out of the theater and some fan girl came barreling down in the opposite direction through Diana and me to get to him.

I thought about saying something to him, but all I could think of was a lame “great show.” Realizing I have absolutely nothing in common with him that could sustain a conversation beyond a fanboy “love your work”, I just tried to hide my excitement and keep walking. Diana and I quickly replayed what we had been saying when he was most likely in earshot (things like “The music’s so great, it’s hard not to enjoy the show” -me and “I bet my parent’s will love it” -Diana).

Then we went home and buzzed around the house for a few hours before the adrenaline rush of the show wore off.

**

I will throw in one note, the show does suffer slightly from Peter Jackson Multiple-Ending Syndrome. That’s largely Green Day’s fault because the 2nd to last song on the album "Homecoming", ends with such finality. Diana, who is not as familiar with the album as I, thought it was the ending as did a fair portion of the audience. Whereas I was sitting there thinking “no, this can’t be the ending! They have to play the last song,” because the last song is my favorite song on the album. They do sing the last song as a sort of epilogue that reprises snippets of choreography from pretty much the entire show to wonderful effect.

Everything about the show is well done: the costumes, the set, the choreography, the performances, the musicians. Even the use of multi-media worked very well for me (and often that doesn’t). Other reviewers I’m sure will write about those things in more technical detail, for me they were just drops in the over-stimulation bucket.

American Idiot runs through October 11 at Berkeley Rep. Buy tickets online here.