Green Day Walk "Idiot"

Green Day will preview its forthcoming album, American Idiot, in its entirety on a short run of club dates beginning in Los Angeles on September 16th. The four-date tour will also visit Chicago on September 18th, New York on the 21st and Toronto on the 24th.

The band has called the thirteen-track Idiot a "punk rock opera," a concept album that includes "Jesus of Suburbia," a nine-minute song broken into chapters with separate titles.

"A band that's known for the perfect two-minute song is now writing nine-minute epics," singer Billy Joe Armstrong told Rolling Stone in May. "It's scary to think about."

Before the album drops on September 21st, fans can catch the video and behind the scenes footage for the title track and first single, when it premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. on MTV2's Making the Video. The band is also streaming snippets of the new album on its Web site.

Green Day plan to tour extensively in the fall with New Found Glory and Sugarcult.

Green Day's tour dates:

9/16: Los Angeles, Henry Fonda Theater (on sale 8/28, 10 a.m.)
9/18: Chicago, Vic Theater (on sale 9/10, 4 p.m.)
9/21: New York, Irving Plaza (on sale 9/17, noon)
9/24: Toronto, Phoenix Theater (on sale 9/17, 10 a.m.)

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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