I Screamed Like an Emo Teenager on BART Because Green Day, Fall Out Boy, & Weezer Are Touring Together
This Tuesday started like any other, a drowsy morning filled with fumbling around in my Walnut Creek apartment, trying not to wake my sleeping boyfriend as he snored through the morning. Besides music, he’s what makes me happy, my lifeline.
I took my pills and walked into my “beauty room,” the den I’ve converted into a space reserved for writing, reading, my makeup, and some light witchcraft (aka, meditation, some random candles, and a couple of crystals).
While trying to figure out how to make my face presentable for work, I absent-mindedly opened YouTube to see both Green Day and Fall Out Boy’s YouTube channels showing the same visual.
Not since I was a snot-nosed teenager in a Green Day T-Shirt had I felt so giddy. My little punk rock heart had been beating like a hand grenade since I was 11, and over 15 years later, I still get giddy when I think about my favorite band.
It’s no secret that Green Day loves the Bay Area, Oakland in particular, which has always been near and dear to me. I longed to move to the Bay Area and start a band, play at 925 Gilman Street and go to La Val’s Pizza on Telegraph Avenue because Green Day mentioned those things and I just wanted to be like them.
I dripped in nostalgia as I walked out the door and traveled to the BART station to start my day.
YouTube said it would notify me when the tour announcement went live, but I didn’t trust my app. I kept the thing open from 8:30 to 9 a.m., as I stumbled and wabbled, standing on the BART train.
Then…it happened.
Each band released a special video to announce the tour. Green Day’s was a spoof of the famous “Anchorman” fight scene between three news teams. Billie Joe Armstrong’s face was superimposed on Will Farrell’s Ron Burgundy and I completely lost my mind.
Behold: Billie Joe Burgundy
I looked around at the sleepy faces of my fellow commuters and thought, “Do they even know that the most incredible thing ever is happening right now?”
My favorite band of all time, Green Day, is going on tour with one of my other favorite bands of all time, Fall Out Boy. Weezer will be there too, and they’re always a great bonus (really, who doesn’t love Weezer)?
My heart started beating faster and faster. I remember skipping school in the 10th grade to see Fall Out Boy with my best friend. There was no greater joy than standing in the front row and getting accidentally drenched in Pete Wentz’ sweat.
As I scoured the internet, put out a couple of overly-excited tweets, and sat my ass down on a BART seat when trains switched over at MacArthur, I realized that this was the first time I felt true happiness in a while.
I felt the happiness of a teenager who got My Chemical Romance tickets for Christmas. I felt the happiness of a teenager who just got their high school band booked at their first club gig. I felt the happiness I used to know as a young punk rocker, hellbent on changing the world one power chord at a time.
When we grow up, we lose ourselves in commutes and budgeting, grocery shopping and going to the gym. We lose that spark of mayhem that makes us who we are, and that’s what causes us to become the depressed drones we used to despise.
If we get joy from going to concerts and reveling in new music from our favorite bands, then we should seek that joy always. You’re never too old to scream like a teenager, and you’re never too old to fill a BART car with a ridiculous joker-like smile, knowing that next year, you’ll be at Oracle Park under a Bay Area summer sky, listening to the bands who kept you alive and still do.
Watch Weezer’s video here.
Watch Fall Out Boy’s video here.
For more info on the Hella Mega Tour, click or tap here.
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