After seeing both shows within seven days, the results are in: I feel pretty confident saying that, live, Green Day is the poor man's Poison. (Read what fans had to say here.)
Now, before anyone writes this statement off too easily let me point out that I'm on the record singing Green Day's praises and, born in 1980, I'm no refugee of the Glam Metal era. I refuse to accept anyone's argument that Green Day's long abandoned punk bona fides, or their newfangled Bush-bashing somehow puts them "above" the guys who sang "Nothin' But A Good Time." At their commercial peak, both bands made highly-stylized teen-friendly pop music very much in step with the moods of their era.
When it comes to staging big, loud, firework-enhanced Summer tours, pop-punk types have a lot to learn from their forbearers, as these two Saturday concerts showed.
Sadly, I did miss part of the Poison's set thanks to a ticket snafu, but what I did see was fantastic. Bret Michaels is a consummate rock showman on par with Springsteen, though, admittedly, the band lacks The Boss' catalog. Michaels knows how to connect without pandering, sounds just like he did on tape 25 years ago and looks half his age. An acoustic opening to "Every Rose Has it's Thorn" and the closer, a rousing version of "Nothin' But A Good Time" were highlights as was, surprisingly, a five-minute Rikki Rocket drum solo. After watching Green Day bury the contributions of their most talented musician, bassist Mike Dirnt, it was refreshing. Rocket is one of very few rock drummers with enough charisma to pull it off, and he did so well. There were copious fireworks, sure, but they seemed much more appropriate in this context than they did with Green Day's political diatribes and old-timey pop-punk.
In the end I was left to conclude that given the chance to see Green Day or Def Leppard I'd probably take Green Day, but, though it pains the Gen Xer in me to say it, Poison beats them both.
Critic's Notebook:
Last Night: Poison, Cheap Trick and Def Leppard at Cricket Wireless PavilionBetter Than: Green Day at U.S. Airways.
Personal Bias: Too young to have experienced these bands at their prime, though my babysitter was a fan.
Random Detail: Why does Cricket only have the awesome frozen Minute Maid Lemonade at one stand in the whole place?
Further Listening: My favorite Poison song:
By The Way: When is it going to get cool enough for me to really enjoy a show at Cricket again? Oof.
