It’s summertime, so the bands are touring, and the DC area often seems to be a popular stop.  We recently took in a couple of summer concerts as part of a Christmas gift to my friend Fitz.

Green DayThe first show we went to was Green Day, who came to the Verizon Center in DC to promote their new album, 21st Century Breakdown.  They put on a great show the last time we saw them, the summer American Idiot came out, so we had high expectations for this performance and they did not disappoint.  They obviously played a lot of music from their new album, but included a lot of older material too.  Billie Joe is absolutely amazing at getting a crowd energized, and even picked a few people out of the audience to go up on stage and play/sing with the band.  The one slightly odd thing was the large number of kids in attendance, but it seemed like most of them had come with their parents, many of whom knew the lyrics better and were more into the music than the kids were.  So that was pretty amusing.  I thoroughly enjoyed singing at the top of my lungs all night long, and as a result, had no voice the following morning.  Man, how does the band do that every night?!

O.A.R.A week and a half later, we went to see O.A.R. at Marriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia.  I didn’t do much singing along this time since I wasn’t very familiar with their music.  But they are a local band, originally from Rockville, so I was eager to check it out.  They are kind of a mixture of Dave Matthews Band and Matchbox 20, with a strong reggae influence added in.  There was a lot of great instrumental stuff going on, which made me happy.  This is definitely a band I want to hear more of!  The opener, Matt Nathanson, was pretty great too.  I liked his songs and musical style, he had a good voice, and his commentary in between songs was hilarious.  It was clear that both groups were having fun up on stage, which makes the show even more fun for us watching it.  We had a great time, as did all the drunk college students who were there.  At least I can say I remembered the concert the next day!