I am the oldest of six siblings so inevitably as I grew older I kept my inner kid near and never quite walked away from “kid’s music.” As a teenager I was obsessed with N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and the likes. As my siblings grew a bit older, the new generation of Disney Stars emerged. You can’t deny that you have not heard Hannah Montana aka “Miley-Slutty-Cyrus-who-can’t-be-tamed”, Hilary Duff (so yesterday), Demi Lovato , Selena Gomez and the BIGGEST star of them all, the Jonas Brothers.
The Jonas Brothers brought their Camp Rock 2 The Final Jam to the Shoreline Amphitheatre this past Saturday and my two youngest siblings were dying to go. As the great sister that I am (and because I secretly wanted to sing along the songs from Camp Rock and the Jonas Brothers) I bought tickets and took them to their first concert ever!
Oh dear! The surprise that was waiting for me….. The teens (and not so teens) from Camp Rock 2 were not the greatest. I must say the movies are really cute but the live act was quite a disaster. I actually like Miss Demi Lovato, unfortunately her “singing skills” are not the best, needless to say that she doesn’t need to worry about writing a speech for a Grammy award, awful singing aside the tweens in attendance had a blast. They all sang along the songs (I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many kids & tweens screaming at once.)
The second surprise of the night was the awesome performance from the Jonas Brothers. I didn’t know what to expect, my teenage sister had gone to their show at the HP Pavillion in San Jose last year and she was blown away, thanks to her I started listening to them and went as far as to adding their music to my ipod and watched both Camp Rock movies. This trio of “virginal” brothers was such a pleasant surprise to my ears. They DO play instruments and have quite lovely voices when singing live. I will admit that I sang along to almost every single song of their set and my absolute favorite is Love Bug (yes I am not embarrassed to say that this twenty-some-year-old chica enjoys the Jonas Brothers music.)
In addition to touring, the Jonas Brothers have teamed up with cambio.com & Allstate “X the TXT” by playing baseball with a team called Road Dogs and joining forces to have teens pledge against texting and driving. During the game, fans can join the Jonas Brothers and take the pledge by adding their thumbprint to a banner that will be traveling with the “Road Dogs” tour. Participants will receive “TXTNG KLLS” thumb bands to wear as a reminder of their commitment. Throughout the game, fans will also have the opportunity to win a meet and greet with the Jonas Brothers or autographed t-shirts. Demi Lovato has also joined a great cause by teaming up with Clean & Clear and Do Something.org to start a movement called "Join The Surge" to encourage teens to give back to their community.
Overall, the concert was lovely, my youngest siblings were satisfied and I got my Jonas Brothers fix.
Credits: cambio.com & dosomething.org
Words cannot describe how absolutely FANTASTIC it was to close out my “summer concert series” by attending the Green Day/AFI show at the Shoreline. Billie Joe, Tre Cool, Mike Dirnt & the gang from AFI ended their long tour at “fuckin’ home” as Billie Joe told the crowd.
VH1 had them on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and they came in at number 91, in my humble eyes, Green Day clearly deserved to be in the top 5 and they are also BAY AREA LEGENDS.
The show at the Shoreline (brought by Live Nation) was all that and a bag of chips. It did not come as a surprise that it was completely SOLD OUT, there was not a spot of grass on the lawn or an empty space and the guys from Green Day most definitely brought down the house.
Billie Joe could not be more excited to be HOME, dropping the names from all the cities from the Bay, the crowd cheered as Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Rodeo and many more were named. He kept telling the fans how excited him and the boys were to be back and that although many bands and celebrities choose to move to Hollywood he would never do that and that he was going to stay in Oakland (being from Oakland, his statement brought chills down my spine and tears down my cheeks.)
Green Day brings such an amazing vibe to his shows; there is really no exact way to describe it unless you witness it for yourself. I’ve witnessed tons of concerts but Green Day has a special way to reach out to fans and let them known how much they appreciate their loyalty for the past 22+ years that the band has been together. What other band do you know that brings real fans on stage to perform songs with them, during the concert a LUCKY fan got to sing Longview and at the end Billie Joe gave her the guitar he had been playing (how rad is that?) or be able to just get on stage and sing along with the band, hug them and take pictures. What other bands do you know who do corky renditions of classics from Journey, The Rolling Stones and some others. While the show was going on the band was also collecting footage for a DVD that is in the works and in Billie Joel words’ “most of the footage we’ll use will be from home.”
There might be haters out there who call Green Day sell-outs and what not but in my eyes and the eyes of the sold out crowd from the show at the Shoreline, the band will continue to play SOLD-OUT shows across the world, they will continue to make AMAZING music to please their loyal fan base and decades from now they will still be one of the GREATEST BANDS OF ALL TIME and true BAY AREA LEGENDS.
Photo Credits: Alan Ralph
