that girl allison
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reviews // Green Day // theatre // books // dating // broadway // movies // food // recipes // cooking // off-broadway // restaurants // upper west side // upper east side // american idiot
This is the playlist that I’ve been rocking out to lately. It’s inspired by (and mostly copied from) the 90’s playlist that my colleague and I rock out to on Spotify in the office. I think a majority of these songs are from the 90’s (admittedly: I alway skip past No Scrubs). They’re all from 10+ years ago at least. Which is nuts. And can we talk about The Offspring for a second? I loved them in junior high. Dexter is like 40 now. Oy.
I love each and every one of these songs. There are few songs from the last ten years (save for almost anything Green Day has done) that I like as much. Why was music so much better in the 90’s? Now all we get are the All American Rejects, Nickleback, and Justin Bieber.
Well, I guess we can always rest soundly that Paul McCartney is still alive. There’s always that.
4/20 memories
Three years ago today American Idiot opened on Broadway. Of course it opened on Four Twenty. Here are a few photos from that night, including one of my favorite photos ever: my photo with Billie Joe Armstrong.
I’ll be heading to New Haven, Connecticut in a couple of weeks with a friend to see the wonderful and energetic non-equity tour of American Idiot. Can’t wait!
Carpe Diem.
The top photo is obviously the “before the concert” shot, and the second is the “omg we’re so tired and feel like we’re going to die BUT THAT WAS SO AWESOME!” shot.
Nothing describes a Green Day concert on the floor better than the title of a song off of Tre, “Brutal Love.” You will sweat. You will get kicked. You will get stepped on. You will get shoved. You may find yourself in a mosh pit. You may even get kicked in the head by a crowd surfer. But all the while you’re smiling because there’s no place you’d rather be than down in front, and center, at a Green Day concert.
My friends and I were about midway back when we finally made our way down to the floor at Barclays. The venue was far from capacity and the opening act (Best Coast) was far from going onstage. If this was as far as we got, that’d be fine (but we knew we’d get closer eventually).
One of my favorite photos from tonight.
Non-equity tours have an admittedly sour reputation of being the poor, red headed younger sibling of equity tours. I saw the first non-equity tour of Rent in 2002 and it was a disaster, to say the least. With that in mind, one can assume my expectations were low for the non-equity tour of American Idiot. The equity tour had been somewhat of a let down last year after the Boston Opera House swallowed up what little energy the half-recycled touring cast had. So, while expectations were low, my friends and I happily headed to Hartford yesterday to see the show we loved that we hasn’t seen in over a year. I picked up two copies of Rolling Stone so we could read about our favorite rockstar on the way up.
We got Hartford and were thoroughly saddened when the city lacked people and open restaurants. I believe there were a whopping sum of two open restaurants open across Bushnell Park from the theatre. The funny thing was that every Hartford native we came across apologized for their city and its lack of, well, everything. After (way too much) searching we eventually found a lovely little restaurant called Salute and parked ourselves at the bar. Minutes later a sea of suits (WASPS) started filing in. Apparently a new Connecticut Supreme Court justice named Andrew had just been sworn in and we were lunching at the site of his celebratory party. Soon after the suits became overwhelming we paid and went back to meet our friend who’d overslept and missed our bus (no worries, he caught the next one). We relaxed and charged our phones as we waited for the doors to the Bushnell Theater opened.
The theatre was large but not as big as the Boston Opera House. We had awesome seats, Row D, though they were still 8 or so rows back, but they were closer than we’d had in Boston. But finally it was fuck time.
Well it’s been a busy couple of weeks. Mostly with work, which I love regardless of the fact that I work 50-60 hour weeks now. I literally have no complaints. That also means that I get home at 7:30-8pm and crash (or crash after a yoga class at 9). So that hasn’t left a lot of time for show-going.
But that all changes this week and I’m stoked! On Thursday night I’ll be seeing Zosia Manet in MCC’s “Really Really.” I love Girls so this is super exciting in my mind. I’m excited to see what she can do onstage, even though I’ve read a synopsis of the play and I’m assuming her character will be pretty similar to the one on Girls.
Later this week on Saturday, I’ll be trekking up to Hartford with some good friends to see the non-equity tour of American Idiot. It’s been about a year since I’ve seen the show live, so I’m looking forward to this treat. A reputable source claims that the Johnny on tour is the best he’s ever seen, so it should be good.
The trip to Hartford is far, and long. But to experience 90-minutes of punk rock bliss, it’s worth it.
Lastly: I’m going to either the second or fourth preview of Matilda next week. I’m REALLY stoked. Considering that this is THE show that will most likely (you heard it here first) sweep the TONYs, I’m so excited.
So, let’s pray for a low-stress work week and lots of awesome theatre.
So, I had been dating a guy since the end of September. We’d met a few years back through mutual friends and we reconnected when he found (and read) my write-up about Green Day at Irving Plaza. He was really, really awesome. He was respectful, sweet, and funny, among other things. We had a lot of fun when we were together. He enjoyed theatre when I dragged him, we saw a few good movies, and we rarely drank (I hate drinking on dates to be honest). For the most part, I was completely myself with him.
What was missing was a spark. We were more like friends who made-out occasionally than people who were dating and heading towards a relationship.
For the last month or so, I tortured myself with regards to what to do about this. It’d gotten to the point that I assumed he must’ve also known this was going nowhere, but a friend told me not to assume what was going on in someone’s head.
I was told by a couple of friends that you do not go out to dinner with someone to break up with them. What? This was all news to me. I thought the adult thing to do was to do it in person? So, I avoided that and we ended up chatting last night. I felt horrifically awful once the words spilled out, but it turns out that he felt exactly the same way. And, yes, he wanted very much to stay friends too.
I was so fucking relieved. We both cared about one another, but we realized we’d let this go on for a bit too long and it was time to be adults.
It was initially the hardest thing I’ve done in a while, but also one of the best. Would it have been as awesome had he not felt the same way? Probably not, but he did! And I’m so ecstatic. Because he’s an awesome guy.
And hopefully we’ll continue to be awesome friends.
Lights Out - Green Day
This unreleased single from 21st Century Breakdown is the perfect theme song for this year’s Super Bowl.
Some years ago the New Orleans Saints played in the Super Bowl. I don’t know a thing about football but the best thing to come from that game was the half-time show. Green Day and U2 teamed up to performed “The Saints Are Coming.” It’s pretty epic and even though they’re not playing again tonight, I thought it was appropriate to post.
So, I don’t have a preference for who I want to win as I still think football is ridiculous, but lets at least hope for a kick-ass half-time show, yes?
