Green Day Combines Antics and Inspiration

For all the adolescent obsessions that seethe on the surface of Green Day’s music, it’s the savvy song craft and deft musicianship behind the paeans to sex, drugs and self-absorption that give them their appeal. True to character, when the Bay Area trio took the stage at the Palace on Wednesday for the first of three sold-out shows, it put on a crowd-pleasing display of goofy antics fueled by some truly inspired music.

Leading the group through some two hours of material dominated by big hits from their last two albums, singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong was a punk-rock court jester, wisecracking and striking exaggerated poses while bassist Mike Dirnt mugged cartoonishly in the background. But no matter how rambunctious their presentation became, the playing was on the level. Crisp drumming, melodic bass lines and piquant guitar locked into a groove that never let up, even at the tail end of the evening after a Who-like finale of trashed equipment and feedback. Alone amid the wreckage, Armstrong donned a fresh guitar and closed the show with “Good Riddance,” the pensive ballad from his band’s latest effort, “Nimrod.”

Too many latter-day punks mistakenly believe that attitude alone gives punk-rock its power. Green Day doesn’t offer any profound statements, but at least it understands that what it does have to say is only as powerful as the music it makes.

* Green Day plays tonight at the Palace, 1735 N. Vine St., 7 p.m. Sold out. (213) 462-3000.