Bullet In A Bible (CD/DVD)

Featuring Green Day's first live DVD, the CD + DVD Bullet in a Bible captures the explosive band on the biggest tour in its career, in support of the Grammy-winning, quadruple-platinum, #1 charting American Idiot punk-rock epic. From two performances filmed in June 2005 before 65,000 fans, both in Milton Keynes in England, to the DVD's documentary segments following the band members around that city as they visit a war museum and various pubs, and share in-depth insights on the making and meaning of American Idiot, Green Day is #1 with a Bullet in a Bible. DVD: Video of the performance with documentary behind-the-scenes footage

If you're wondering how Green Day managed to become the biggest punk band in the world, take a look at Bullet in a Bible. Recorded at their June 2005 two-night run at Milton Keynes National Bowl in England, this combined CD/DVD sees these former bong-hitting Californian dropouts embracing political activism, pantomime hilarity, and all the fripperies of a rock opera-–and excelling at all three.

The first half is essentially a run-through of the group's 2004 album American Idiot, complete with anti-American rabble-rousing and a set of barbed insults tossed back at the "rednecks" across the pond. That out of the way, the band careen into a sort of greatest-hits set, with the likes of "Longview" and "Hitchin' a Ride" sharing space with a brass-laden "King for a Day" that sees Billie Joe Armstrong prancing around the stage in crown and ermine cape, singing snatches of Lulu's "Shout" and Eric Idle's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." Tremendously silly, but Green Day have managed to figure out how to play it like showmen without resorting to juvenile puerility or morphing into corporate yes-men, and that's a way harder trick than it looks. --Louis Pattison