It's a familiar story: A bunch of snot-nosed youths get together and unleash a tirade of angst-laden vitriol that is a huge hit with a disaffected youth, eventually landing them a major label deal. As the pay checks get fatter so does the band's propensity for pretentiousness. The music loses its edge or 'matures', as the band themselves would say. Before they know it, said band are attempting feats of self-indulgence that would have even the master of self-indulgence Sting grimacing at the sheer pompous audacity of it. Such is the story of Green Day (apart from the Sting bit). As one time bonafide punk heroes, they were adept at inciting havoc and notorious for playing riotous shows that once saw the band survive being pelted with mud for entirety of their set. Gradually, the band has succumbed to the attraction of the rockstar stereotype; frontman Billy Joel Armstrong, once a prime usurper of the socio-political zeitgeist, can now not only be found firing t-shirts out of a canon in stadiums the world over, he has also re-worked his songs from the rock opera and commercial opus 'American Idiot' to the medium of a Broadway musical.
