"Sing us a song of the century / That's louder than bombs and eternity / The era of static and contraband / Leading us into the Promised Land..." rang out Billie Joe's voice to the thousands of Green Day fans that occupied the seats and floor of the United Center on Monday night.

This was my second time seeing Green Day in concert, and they wowed me just as much as the first time I saw them live; these guys can ROCK! Billie, Mike, and Tre have great chemistry together as a band and it manifests itself in spades onstage. If you looked up "stage presence" in the dictionary you might find a picture of Billie Joe Armstrong there. He exudes such energy when playing, I don't know how he does it; he runs from one side of the stage to the other, runs out onto the catwalk, then back to centerstage, all while playing guitar, singing (and sounding fantastic), and keeping the audience involved. Throughout the entire show he did a lot of call and response games with the audience, pulled fans onstage to sing and play guitar, threw flowers and t-shirts to the crowd, had many good things to say about Chicago, our beloved town, offered the audience countless opportunities to take over the singing, (which provided himself with a few much-needed moments to catch his breath and the audience a chance to flaunt our knowledge of their lyrics), and multiple times he thank thank THANKED all of us fans for coming out to see them play.

My friend and I somehow managed to find the perfect spot to stand during the show, a short distance from the stage but not close enough that we'd be pushed around helplessly and pressed flat up against everyone around us. The people standing near us were mellow and didn't partake in the pointless moshing that a handful of Hot Topic poster children seemed to think was the best way to enjoy the music. Then when the show started we suddenly saw Billie Joe pop up a mere few feet to our right, singing to those immediately surrounding the catwalk, which apparently was right next to us!

They played a lot of their new stuff, and when I say "new stuff" I'm referring to 21st Century Breakdown released this year and American Idiot released in 2005, and this would have annoyed me had they not played a fantastic selection of songs from their older albums, including "Basket Case," "Brain Stew," "Jaded," "Longview" (of course!), "She," "Hitchin' a Ride" (one of my all-time favorites), and "King for a Day," which featured a very fun cover of "Shout!" in between refrains.

A lot of arm swaying went on during "Waiting," from American Idiot, a lot of lighters were held high during "21 Guns," and a lot of everything went on during the nine-minute-long "Jesus of Suburbia," where an extremely talented young boy was picked out of the crowd to play Billie Joe's guitar. If you're a fan of Green Day's newer stuff, you would have dug the first part of the concert where they played "Know Your Enemy," "21st Century Breakdown," and "East Jesus Nowhere" from their newest album, and "Holiday," "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," and "St. Jimmy" from American Idiot.

As much as I applaud the band as well as the musicians who tour with them, I have to take the time to tip my cap to the tech crew; the light show and pyrotechnics were just incredible, so polished and interesting and perfectly timed with the music. Lights of all different colors pulsated, swept, and flashed at different speeds, accompanied by occasional bursts of flame or sparks from the back of the stage, all set to a projected city skyline that served as a background during the majority of the show.

Then they said good night, left the stage, and the concert was over.

Ha! Maybe. If this weren't GREEN DAY we're talking about here.

After playing an impressive set of songs, new and old, Green Day left the stage while the crowd cheered, clapped, whooped, and screamed for their return. The band obliged and came back out, with Billie running down the catwalk to address the crowd and lead the band in not one, not two, but about six or seven encore songs spanning from multiple albums, including "Minority," "The Static Age," and a surprising performance of "American Eulogy," which I assumed they wouldn't play because of its intricacies. Billie Joe closed the show with a solo acoustic performance of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," which featured a lone spotlight on Billie and his acoustic guitar as he strummed and sang with sentiment at the end of the catwalk.

The next day I saw a couple Chicagoans walking the city with pride in their Green Day '09 t-shirts, and it made me smile to know that we all had been in attendance at the same awesome party the night before, jumping up and down, piercing the air with rock 'n' roll hand gestures, yelling the same lyrics back at the band that showed us such a damn good time.

Like them or not, you have to admit, Green Day puts on one hell of a show.