This autumn marks the 20th anniversary of Green Day’s American Idiot and the Bay Area punks are marking it in some ways that are entirely expected and one that is most definitely not.
So yes there’s an anniversary tour and yes there’s an anniversary reissue. But Green Day have also teamed up with Punk Bunny Coffee and Keurig to issue an American Idiot Anniversary Edition Brewer bundle that includes a brewer, an iced coffee tumbler, 12 Punk Bunny coffee pods and access to a Spotify playlist curated by the band.
The bad news? It’s already sold out, though fans can sign up to be notified when bundle is back in stock.
Green Day fans who eschew coffee (or who perhaps prefer tea and/or other warm beverages) can content themselves with the fact that there is indeed a 20th anniversary edition of the album arriving in October. There is a limited edition super deluxe box set which includes eight pieces of vinyl, or four CDs, plus two Blu-Ray discs in each package. The Grammy-winning album will also be reissued on limited edition colour vinyl.
The box sets will include 15 unreleased demos of the album, a live show recorded at New York’s Irving Plaza in September 2004, nine unreleased live recordings – including a cover of Queen’s We Are The Champions – and 14 songs previously issued only as B sides or bonus tracks. The band shared a few of these online last week:
American Idiot instantly revitalised Green Day’s career back in 2004. A 57 minute ‘punk rock opera’, it not only contained the band’s best songs up until that point but seemed utterly of the moment, tapping into a disillusionment many young Americans felt during the George W Bush presidency and the then seemingly-endless ‘War On Terror’.
Few bands make it to a seventh album, fewer still make it their enduring legacy to the world. It spawned a Broadway musical, a first for a Bay Area punk band, or indeed any punk band. There was even talk of a Hollywood film at one point though that idea seems to have now died a quiet death.
And of course the band have been playing the complete album on their Saviors tour, which runs through to the end of next month in the US, finishing up in San Diego on September 28.
