Green Day’s American Idiot Musical (Appropriately Named)

This isn’t the first time a band’s music has been made into a musical.  ABBA’s music inspired Mamma Mia! which has seen incredible success, and the music of The Who led to Tommy which hit Broadway in 1993.  But Green Day?  Not exactly what you would call a “classic” band.  Green Day might have led the way into the punk movement, but does that make a good musical?  No matter what I say, the Grammy winning band does have extreme popularity.  The American Idiot album sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

I admit I was a fan of their early music.  I probably listened to “Basket Case” on repeat for a year.  But then when I saw what they had done to popular music I was appalled.  Thanks to Green Day, we now have punk bands overflowing the radio stations, with their whiny vocals and unorganized guitar jams.  It seems like any dirty angry kid can start a punk band now.  If bands like All American Rejects and Sum 41 can make it, anyone can.

From my observations, here are some tips for a successful punk band.  Tip 1: Don’t shower.  Tip 2: Get angry over unimportant situations.  Tip 3: Lyrics must be hard, if not impossible to understand.  Tip 4: Do totally crazy and disgusting things, like drink your own urine on stage (I’m not making this up.  Pete Wentz of punk band Fallout Boy just did this at a live concert last week.)  Tip 5 (Most Important): WHINE CONSTANTLY!

So if these are the keys to a good musical these days, then art and culture is about to take a violent downturn with American Idiot rocking theatre stages.  Michael Mayer, a Tony Award winning writer, co-wrote the musical’s book with Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of Green Day.  Billie Joe came up with the ideas for the punk musical, and the band will be credited with all the music for the show.

So far no one is willing to give a summary of the storyline for the musical, but the theme of the album was that of a post-9/11 society dealing with “broken dreams” and the realities of life.  They have announced that there will be 19 characters in the show, all in their 20s.  Characters in the album include Jesus of Suburbia (and his drug-dealing alter-ego St. Jimmy) and Whatshername (St. Jimmy’s anarchist girlfriend), so these might be some of the same ones used for the musical.

American Idiot will open on stage at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in September.  Funny that one of the songs from American Idiot is called “Wake Me Up When September Ends”…