Armstrong himself admitted to his confusion looking back. The teenage boredom of Burnout was starting to eat away from the inside. Stranded, lost, his own worst enemy, rejected, self-loathing freak and introverted deviot. The very opening lines on the album, on Armatage Shanks, set it out. “Ready for a cheap escape on the brink of self-destruction…Broken glass inside my head bleeding down these thoughts of anguish” he sings on the aptly-title Panic Song. That anxiety brewing in Armstrong spewed out in bucket-fulls on Insomniac. There’s no return, their time there had gone, they were personas non gratas in the venue that had once been their home. Armstrong put it out there on the wonderful 86. The spring that had bounced throughout their previous albums had been wound tighter than tight, twisted with self-doubt and anxiety, feeling the alienation from the 924 Gilman scene that had nurtured them. By the time they rolled through town again, on the Nimrod tour in 1998, only the last two would make an appearance.Ī crying shame looking back because, while it was Dookie that had propelled them into the stratosphere with its great punk pop hooks and slacker-vibe lyrics, Insomniac, criticised in the some quarters of the press at the time for lack of progress, was certainly a step forward for them. Stuck With Me, Geek Stink Breath, and Jaded. That night, on the official European tour for their fourth album, Green Day only chose to play the already released singles. In the middle of a crammed mosh pit, my feet didn’t touch the ground until they decided to drop in the first dose from Insomniac, the single Stuck With Me, five songs later. The band bounded on and wailed straight into Welcome To Paradise. It may have officially been the Insomniac tour, but the album was still a month from being released and songs from its bubblegum punk older sibling dominated the set. Thus, their Manchester Apollo show on September 22nd popped my gig-going cherry (not counting the local Lanky nights through the years). But, a year later, in September 1995, they were back and, on the back of the success of the album, they were out of the clubs and playing theatres. When Green Day rolled through town in support of Dookie, I was too young to make the show.
Twenty-five years on from its release, Nathan Whittle makes the case for why this bastard younger brother is Green Day’s high-water mark. Their follow-up, Insomniac, would cement them as the kings of the rising punk-pop scene, whilst simulateously alienating some of those who had fallen under Dookie’s spell. In 1995 Green Day were riding high on the success of the multi-platinum Dookie, released the previous year.
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