Green Day

Green Day perfrom at the Barclays Center in New York City on April 7th, 2013.

Early in most musicals, you’ll find an “I want” song. Belle wants “adventure in the great wide somewhere.” Tevya tells us, musically, that he wants to be a rich man and Eliza Doolittle sings of that enormous chair in a mythical room “far away from the cold night air.” The list goes on.

It makes perfect sense, though, that the title anthem for the musical “American Idiot” (the tour of which blasted into Clowes Hall April 2-7) starts with the entire cast singing about what they don’t want.

“Don’t want to be an American Idiot,” rages Johnny (Alex Nee) and his cohorts. “Don’t want a nation under the new media.

Johnny’s crew (there’s nobody older or younger in sight) has no idea what they want to do with their lives, only what they don’t want to do. They don’t want to live in suburbia. They don’t want to be like their parents. They don’t want to take whatever is shoved on them by TV.

PROVIDENCE — Going from well-publicized, profanity-laced public meltdown (and subsequent treatment for "substance abuse") to a rock 'n' roll rebirth hot enough to singe one's eyebrows, Green Day's front-man Billie Joe Armstrong is not only back but he's bigger, badder and hammier than ever.

On top of that, Armstrong seemed to be having the time of his life and so, too, did the 10,000-plus in attendance Tuesday night at the Dunkin' Donuts Center.

As part of the rescheduled "99 Revolutions Tour" (for the three companion albums, "¡Uno!," "¡Dos!" and "¡Tré!"), Green Day performed a career-spanning, two-and-a-half hour, 27-song set that included a three-song encore and, at least one song from each of the band's albums.

In fact, with only eight of the 27 numbers from the combined trilogy — which sounded better and more fleshed out live than on the records — that they are allegedly touring behind, six numbers from "American Idiot" and five from 1994's breakthrough "Dookie," this show was a dream come true for diehard and recent Green Day devotees alike. The Berkeley-based combo (which has gone from being an unassuming punk trio to powerhouse sextet in concert) barreled out of the starting gate with a blistering, slash-and-burn assault of "99 Revolutions" from "¡Tré!"

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