Kaiser Chiefs

Hello there Nimrods, how are you today?

The Kaiser Chiefs ended their stint on Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown Tour on August 7th, 2009 in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Friday's show ended with a bang, but audience members may have had an added treat. Nick Hodgson drummer for the Kaiser Chiefs recalls his reaction, "Brad Pitt was there. It was totally cool. We met Brad Pitt."

Hodgson tells Spinner that he bumped into the star when Pitt was coming to the show with his two young sons. "He had his kids with him. There were a couple security and that, but he was just sat in the normal seats." 

Although the star was very friendly and remained modest, he admits that his bandmates felt super starstruck, "we had a photograph taken just like regular nerds. We had the camera set to video so we had to call him back. He was cool. It's not the first time that's happened."

Green Day gave the Chiefs a traditional goodbye hazing for their last night on tour with the punk legends. "Every time when they have supporting bands, the final night they sort of prank the band. We got off really lightly I think. If you look at You Tube, there's some support bands that have had bad things happen to them, but Green Day organized a Louisiana/New Orleans old time brass band and they got them into the arena last night."

The brass ensemble held out until the British natives performed their last song, "I Predict a Riot". The drummer laughs about the shenanigans the Oakland trio pulled on them, "when we started 'I Predict a Riot,' this band came on and then Green Day came on, and they were playing cowbells. It was a shock. I just wonder whether the people of New Orleans think that's our regular type of performance."

Don't think the craziness stopped there! On top of all the madness, the last prank was definitely the cherry on top! "Toilet Paper. They T.P.'d us They covered our drums, instruments. It was live on stage. We got T.P.'d."

A quick search on You Tube did not result in any video from the Kaiser's prank, however it did come up with two clips from the prank Green Day pulled on The Bravery.

We at Nimrod Street were very lucky to see Kaiser Chiefs opening up August 5th, they really are awesome live. Definitely a must-see if you get a chance to experience them!

Have a good day everyone!

What an amazing night!

I'm talking of course about the Orlando Green Day performance at the Amway Arena. The night was filled with explosions, lights,lasers and all around a rocking good time.

First off, let me start by saying sorry for the delay in getting this review out to you guys. As you could imagine I had a lot of notes to weed through in order to get the most information out of it. That being said, we first need to start with Kaiser Chiefs.

Although not being that well known here in the United States, they certainly blew everyone away with their energy. The band's lead singer, Ricky Wilson, ran from right to left several times attempting to induce loud cheering. Wilson also ran off the stage into the audience to get them to cheer even louder for Green Day. As he leaned to one of the audience members sitting in our section, he said "I don't think they're ready for Green Day" causing the audience to roar even louder.

The Chiefs kicked off their set with the rocking tune, "I Predict A Riot", also they sang the upbeat dance song, "Ruby". To finish off, they ended things with "Oh My God" before walking off the stage leading us to the next band. Other songs performed included "Everything is Average Nowadays" and "Everyday I Love You Less And Less".

Right before all the chaos started, the drunk pink bunny came out in a Green Day t-shirt with a bottle of beer. The puppet kept lifting up its shirt and also rolling in both sides of the arena. Along with this, he got off the stage and went into the right side of the audience and slid down some stairs backstage again.

After waiting a couple of minutes, Green Day came out to a roaring crowd and began their set with "Song Of The Century" which led into the album's title track, "21st Century Breakdown". After that, they rocked out with the first single off their eighth album, "Know Your Enemy". At one point, Billie Joe called for all the lights to be turned off and used a spotlight to shine down on his audience.

During "East Jesus Nowhere",the screen behind them had colorful religious imagery. The band's frontman called for a volunteer that was "young and not quite ripe yet" to come on stage and be what he called, "saved". After receiving instructions, 10 year old Patrick fell to the floor just as fireworks went off as to show that his sins were forgiven.

From this tune the band played straight into "Holiday", which featured an impressive screen filled with stuff about CNN and war. From there it went to "The Static Age". Before it started, Billie seemed to imply for everyone to put their technical devices away as he said, "To hell with tv, to hell with computers, this is our moment!". This particular song also had one of the back up band members, Jason Freese, playing an amazing saxophone solo!

Billie Joe also told his adoring fans a story about how he and Ricky Wilson got drunk while in their hotel room and how the Kaiser frontman wanted to get a tattoo the night before. To this Billie replied that he can give tattoos, however Wilson was surprised when instead of a tattoo gun, all Armstrong had was a needle and pen ink. When he was done, the trio went on with "Before The Lobotomy". In this song, they stop playing on parts and encouraged crowd participation during some of the verses.

When this song was over, a small disco ball accompanied the screen to coincide with "Are We The Waiting". After performing, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", the group briefly played a little bit of "You Really Got Me". Then, immediately started playing, "Hitching A Ride" from 1997's, "Nimrod". Green Day also did a medley of several heavy metal covers including: Black Sabbath's, "Iron Man", Motley Crue's, "Shout at the devil", The Doors "Break on Through" and Metallica's, "Master of Puppets".

It wasn't all about the music, Armstrong called up a volunteer to spray down the audience with an enormous super soaker. Following this, Billie Joe pulled out a toilet paper reel and a t-shirt canon. He also asked the general admission to start a mosh pit for their next song, "Jaded".

Going way back to their very first hit, Armstrong asked for three volunteers to sing to "Longview" on-stage. Some of which even took a stage dive as directed by Billie!

These Oakland rockers also did another medley to "King For A Day" with everyone on stage wearing a different funky outfit. Freese dressed up like the late Michael Jackson in a red jacket, black wig and did a moonwalk just before they started. This segment included covers of "Shout" and "Free Falling" by Tom Petty.

Just before the evening closed, the encore included older songs "American Idiot" and "Jesus of Suburbia" which included a audience member that played lead guitar. Everyone on stage took a final bow and left Billie Joe by himself as he serenaded the crowd with acoustic versions of "Christie Road", "Waiting" and finally, "Good Riddance".

Overall the show was super impressive and there was never a dull moment, it was even more magical than the 2005 show when Amway Arena was known as the TD Waterhouse Arena. All goes to prove once again, Green Day are the greatest band in the world!

Stay tuned for more information on our continuing coverage of the 21st Century Breakdown tour.

Add to our tour thread here.

See the official Orlando set list here.

Hello peeps, how are you doing? Hope it's all going great!

Bassist Mike Dirnt speaks to radio station, 107.7 The End about the band's new album, "21st Century Breakdown", their producer Butch Vig, side band Foxboro Hot Tubs, and Internet piracy! Listen to the interview here.

Tre cool sits down and chats it up with Rolling Stone about their stellar evening performing on Saturday Night Live. Cool says quote, "At the afterparty, we were standing on the ice rink in Rockerfeller Center where the ice usually is, and there was about an inch or so of water, and it was cool to see all these dudes in their new sneakers and chicks in their rad $400 Manolo shoes just cruising around in two inches of water and not giving a fuck. There were people dancing and Will Ferrell showed up in a Gucci Jumpsuit with gold chains and money rings and shit, and it was pretty wild."

On June 23rd look for the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack featuring Green Day's, "21 Guns". Should be great! Check out GreenDay.com for more info!

Also, Green Day's North American tour officially starts July 3rd, 2009! It'll start off at the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington where supporting act, The Bravery. After that, Kaiser Chiefs will take the reigns of opening for our guys in Green, when these guys are done, Franz Ferdinand will be the last openers on August 8th in Houston, Texas. Tour officially ends August 25th in California. Read all about it at CelebrityCafe.com!

Here's a clip from The Colbert Report that was apparently left out of the show. It features Billie Joe playing on a keyboard and sitting in Stephen Colbert's chair. It's pretty rad!