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Green Day Preview New Album at Secret Show!

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Bay Area legends Green Day played their new album at a surprise hometown show Tuesday night at San Francisco’s 500-capacity club, the Independent. Billed as a “band practice,” the group booked the gig because they were, as frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said onstage, “sick of playing these [new] songs to one another.”

After the show was announced midday yesterday, tickets sold out in a matter of minutes, but the lucky few who managed to get in were treated to a live sneak-peek at the band’s much-awaited new album, 21st Century Breakdown (due out May 15), plus loads of gems from the band’s catalog — all part of a 30-plus song setlist!

While the night was clearly OMFG! photo-op-tastic, Armstrong kept the shutterbugs restrained: After inviting concertgoers to give it their best “shot” with their cellphone cameras at the show’s outset, he then asked everyone to “put the fucking things away.”

The band — fleshed out to a six-piece with two guitarists and a keyboardist — opened with Dookie‘s “Welcome to Paradise” then proceeded to perform their new album song-for-song, dividing the tunes into three acts (“Heroes and Cons,” “Charlatans and Saints,” and “Horseshoes and Handgrenades”) to mirror the concept of the record.

Green Day followed up the new material with a second set of old favorites, including “Macy’s Day Parade,” “Longview,” “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield,” “American Idiot,” and “Jesus of Suburbia.”

Setlist:

“Welcome to Paradise”

Act I: Heroes and Cons
“21st Century Breakdown”
“Know Your Enemy”
“Viva la Gloria”
“Before the Lobotomy”
“Christian’s Inferno”
“Last Night on Earth”

Act II: Charlatans and Saints
“East Jesus Nowhere”
“Peacemaker”
“Last of the American Girls”
“Murder City”

Act III: Horseshoes and Handgrenades
“Restless Heart Syndrome”
“Horseshoes and Handgrenades”
“Drama Queen”
“Static Age”
“21 Guns”
“American Eulogy”
“See the Light”

Second Set:
“American Idiot”
“Jesus of Suburbia”
“She”
“Christie Road”
“J.A.R.”
“F.O.D.”
“Longview”
“Who Wrote Holden Caulfield”
“Brainstew” [started it, but Billie Joe said “forget it”]
“Going to Pasalacqua”
“Macy’s Day Parade”
“King for a Day”
“Minority”