You could almost imagine the epitaph on Green Day's headstone from the moment Reprise got into the whole contract-fulfilling kiss-of-death releases that beset Green Day just this side of the turn of the millennium. A "best of" collection and then the certain doom of the "rarities" compilation followed in quick succession and it seemed that a dying cash cow was being milked for its last, acrid drops.
Then, in 2004, a decade after Green Day resurrected a scene, kept alive only by Epitaph and the annual release of a Bad Religion album, something happened. Somehow, when all had turned their back, and when some mental aberration caused the Democrats to choose John Kerry as their candidate, George W. Bush found his way back to the White House and American Idiot was born.
Returning like revenants, Green Day has found themselves the darlings of every commercial TV and radio station from Anaheim to The Middle East. Love them or hate them, you just can't get away from them right now, and suddenly, it seems, Reprise have noticed that their dying cash cow isn't so dying anymore and the milking machines are once again pumping away.
With fourteen songs recorded in front of 60,000 or so fans in merry old England and with random excerpts of interviews and tour footage, Bullet in a Bible is every other generic rock band DVD since the rock band DVD was invented a few short months after the DVD itself.
There's something about Bullet in a Bible though. Maybe it's the fact that, after seven albums, half of the set list is taken from American Idiot? Maybe it's the fact that there's a "Brainstew" and no "Jaded?" Maybe it's that the setlist is missing so many classic songs, from "When I Come Around" to "Welcome to Paradise?" The fact that it includes "Are We the Waiting?" Maybe it's that the DVD is nearly 40 minutes old before something that isn't from American Idiot gets played? Maybe it's the fact that Tre Cool constantly looks like the bad guy from The Incredibles. I don't know. There's just something missing.
The whole DVD reeks of being put together far too quickly. Predictable color to black and white fades, excessive migraine-inducing soft focus wipes, and sometimes the deliberate lack of focus doesn't look all that deliberate. Not to mention the time consuming, but nonetheless, pointless and un-amusing "behind-the-scenes" footage of Billie Joe's arse, and the overly-serious and unenlightening interview excerpts. When it comes down to it, the whole DVD is a poor disguise for cynical marketing, designed to make as much money out of Green Day before they go off and do something stupid like make another Warning.
Understandable? Sure. Expected? Pretty much. Entertaining? Not all that much. Honorable? Hell no. It's packaged, post-Warning Green Day, wrapped up into a neat little CD-shaped, cardboard box, for the 14 year old generation who hate Bush because Fat Mike says so, and who can't make sense of all those old songs about wanking.
Fair enough, the accompanying CD comes with decent live recordings of all the same songs on the DVD. Screaming girls, 60,000 fans yelling back anti-American sentiment, Billie Joe bawling "England" every two songs or so, the way Green Day break down nearly every song about half way through for some "whoas", "heys" and other miscellany. The CD captures everything that makes a Green Day show fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
It's hardly enough for redemption, though. Too little, too late and all that... After ten years of waiting, it's disappointing to see that Green Day, and certainly, Reprise seem to have forgotten about the fans that have been waiting for those ten years. Bullet in a Bible may as well be American Idiot: The DVD. It will be bought up and loved by the American Idiot generation. For anyone else, it'll rot away on a shelf, lifted down, only occasionally, and only for nostalgia.
