Billie Joe: Two shows in one night? Yeah, I'm still so goddamn punk.

Foxboro Hot Tubs @ London Highbury Garage
2nd November 2009

There is officially a beer drought in Highbury and Islington. Crates of alcohol were drank, thrown, spilt, spat and sprayed in scenes reminiscent of any raucous student bar you’ve ever been to – and that was just the band’s participation. Foxboro Hot Tubs drenched the crowd and themselves in beverages and 1960s-tinged punk rock for two hours from 1am at the Garage.

The reason for the late start was because Foxboro had to finish entertaining over at Wembley Arena in their guise of Green Day. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool, Jason White, Jason Freese and Prima Donna guitarist Kevin Preston make up the 6-piece band.

Addressing everyone as “Baby girl� indiscriminately throughout, the achingly hip Reverend Strychnine Twitch (Armstrong) and the five other Tubbers powered home blasts of catchy rock ‘n’ roll, slow burning grooves and some inventive covers.

Playing tracks from their album Stop, Drop and Roll! the intimate crowd were soon dripping with sweat and beer. Twitch poured a whole can over his head as he sang at one point, and Dirnt took great pride in spraying the audience at regular intervals.

Live favourite ‘Stop, Drop and Roll!’, single ‘Mother Mary’, ‘The Pedestrian’ and ‘Ruby Room’ are played and received with equal gusto. Twitch stage dived more often than a foreign striker in the Premier League and there is a genuine sense of normalcy about the gig.

Sure, there were people there in Green Day clothing, but the atmosphere was aligned to an original band, playing some great tunes to an appreciative audience. In all honesty, the five Green Day boys look relaxed, relieved of the expectation and personas that one would imagine comes with being in one of the world’s biggest bands.

Still, that didn’t stop Foxboro breaking out a cover of Green Day’s ‘Blood, Sex and Booze’, which they followed up later with ‘Supermodel Robots’ by electro-rock group The Network, who also sound suspiciously like they have members of Green Day involved…

Foxboro Hot Tubs – ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’ (The Who cover, live at London Highbury Garage)

Beginning the encore by reprising ‘Stop, Drop and Roll!’ the band plays it again straight after as Twitch screamed: “We like this one, godammit!� Dirnt then claimed the band could play it again, but play it even better. So, they do it twice more just to make sure. Sound boring? Sound lazy? Each subsequent roar of approval seems to point to neither of those things.

Extra covers appeared like ‘Johnny B Goode’, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ an impromptu attempt of MC Hammer’s ‘U Can’t Touch This’ and both The Who’s ‘My Generation’ and ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ (the latter extended by the last round of “You are forgiven!� being re-introduced with a “one, two, three, four!� individually by every member of the band). It seemed fitting that the night ended on a sixth rendition of ‘Stop, Drop and Roll!’ Everyone in the building had just about enough strength to do just that.

Dirnt told the audience there was a full moon out, and that was the reason everyone turned up because “we hadn’t all gone to church this Sunday�. However, the Reverend Strychnine and his disciples made the audience worship at their altar of rock ‘n’ roll and didn’t disappoint with the sermon.

Stop, Drop and Roll! is out now on Jingle Town records

By James Barrett