Green Day's 'American Idiot' - The Musical (Review)

Green Day's 'American Idiot' is my favourite album, ever. From all song writing, story telling, and emotional perspectives, it's perfect. In 2009, five years after the album was released, it's story was adapted into a Broadway Musical, which toured the world with multiple variations of cast and in different languages, until 2014. This year marks the 15th Anniversary of the American Idiot album itself, and the 10 Year Anniversary of the Broadway Adaptation's birth, and with this came a Re-Run of the Broadway show, which is able to harness the powerful political, life and love messages of American Idiot's story, while having you singing along to every word through tears and laughter. It's brilliant.

Sam Lavery as 'Whatsername' (left) & Tom Milner as 'Johnny' (right).

I saw this show in 2012, but since then my memory of the show had faded. I remember it being amazing but back then the message of the album hadn't really hit me yet, and I didn't understand the story. So going into seeing it on Saturday night, I was so f*cking excited. The show begins with a TV on stage playing news highlights of multiple George W. Bush Press Conferences around the time of 9/11, since the story of the album is set within his presidency. It then jumps straight into the entire cast singing 'American Idiot', then straight into the 9 minute masterpiece 'Jesus Of Suburbia'. Now I hate to say it, but even though it was just the first two songs, I wasn't that impressed.

The way these songs were sang, seemed to be very 'cheery', if you know what I mean. The tone of everyone singing sounded positive, optimistic, rather than the pain, angst, and anger that's meant to fuel the first two opening tracks of the album. But after that, everything is pretty much nailed from a singing and performance perspective. Tom Milner is brilliant as the lead, Johnny. There's a scene about three quarters of the way through, where his character takes a hit of heroine. It's about a 6 minute performance where no words are spoken, and there's silence around him and from the crowd as he injects himself and suffers the sudden consequences. His acting here was just fantastic, it seemed real, he showed pain and relief, confusion and anger. That scene hits hard.

Luke Friend as 'St. Jimmy' (left) and Ton Milner as 'Johnny' (right).

Stand out tracks from the whole show are 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams', which is performed mostly acoustically just by Tom Milner, and he nails it. I'll save my favourite song from the show for a bit later on, but 'She's a Rebel' was brilliant as it was mixed with 'Last Of The American Girls' from '21st Century Breakdown', which was a nice surprise. 'Homecoming' was also fantastic.

Sam Lavery as 'Whatsername' is very good, and her rendition of the song 'Letterbomb', in which she tells Johnny that she's leaving him, is amazing. If there's one negative I have to talk about though, is Luke Friend as 'St. Jimmy'. I loved his voice, god it was great, but I feel that the role was completely mis-cast. If you watch the Music Video for 'Jesus Of Suburbia', you'll see the St. Jimmy character. It's a punk, a rebel, if anger could be portrayed through a person. That character shouldn't be represented through long blonde hair. I did like the outfits, it made the character, which is an altar-ego of Johnny, look like a God or a Prophet, a figure of power as he takes control of Johnny. But his look was completely off. Was a fan of Friend's voice, outfits and style, but sadly I think this could've been cast better. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day actually portrayed St. Jimmy during a few shows of the Musical in 2010, I'm not saying that's what it should still be, but he has the perfect look for the character.

St. Jimmy in the Music Video for 'Jesus Of Suburbia'.

There is one thing that I need to talk about though. My favourite thing about this show, the main thing I took away from it. The show implements many B-Sides from American Idiot, like the brilliant 'Too Much Too Soon' and 'Favourite Son', and also unreleased song 'When It's Time', but it also heavily features a lot of '21st Century Breakdown', Green Day's followup album to American Idiot. Songs like 'Know You're Enemy' and 'Before the Lobotomy' are perfectly used to advance the story, but oh my god, 'Last Night On Earth'. This is Green Day's most beautiful song in my opinion, and I didn't ever expect to hear it featured in the musical, I only expected '21 Guns' from 21CB to be featured, and it actually wasn't. But when Last Night On Earth started to play, it was an indescribable feeling. Goosebumps, it hit so f*cking hard. This song fits perfectly into the American Idiot story, and it's such a beautiful song. I just can't describe how perfect it was here. Listen to the original recording, it's just so good, and was my favourite part of the musical. A live acoustic performance from Green Day is below, please watch it, it's one of my favourite songs.

So overall, the 'American Idiot Musical' is brilliant. A dodgy start which is quickly perfected with stripped back acoustic performances, stunning emotional scenes, a great mix of love, comedy and sadness. A great story, brilliantly executed. Still can't get over last night on earth. I give the show 8/10. Thank you for reading.