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By Ronnie Raffaniello

As you may or may not know, just last week I was traveling through California to cover some shows. On Tuesday night I found myself in San Jose at the HP Pavilion, photographing one of the biggest (if not the biggest) rock bands of our generation. Green Day is a band that I’ve grown up listening to and the first time I saw them play was almost ten years ago now. The first time I saw them was incredible, and they’ve blown my mind every time since. Green Day has the best live performance I’ve ever seen from a band. Whether it’s

playing a gig for less than 200 people (been there) or playing at a sold out arena or stadium (been there, too), these guys give it their all and make sure the crowd is having just as much fun as they are. And don’t you hate it when you go to see a band you love, but they sound terrible live? Green Day is one of those bands that sounds just as good, if not better than their actual albums, which adds so much to the show. I have seen this band FIFTEEN times and still have just as much fun as the first time I saw them when I was just a kid.

In addition to their show in San Jose, I attended the show last night at the Forum in Los Angeles (well, technically Inglewood). Being the last show of the U.S. leg of the tour, the guys were going to make sure the went out with a bang. As the music started playing, the whole band entered from the back of the arena and walked through the crowd to get up on stage (how many bands as big as Green Day can you say that about?). They had a really amazing set where they played some of their new music, some from American Idiot, and then played old (some really old) music for the rest of the night. Literally TWO-AND-A-HALF hours later, Green Day was playing their “last song” before the encore. It was amazing!!