Thoughts, video clips, and new songs from VH1's airing of ¡Cuatro!
By Jack /Nov. 29, 2012 / Comments
[pic=¡Cuatro!]012313_rsz_cuatro.jpg[/pic]Last night, VH1 showed an hour-long edited section of Green Day's documentary about the making of the trilogy, titled ¡Cuatro!.
Over the course of the next month, both VH1, MTV2 and Palladia will be showing this TV version of ¡Quatro! periodically. The next airing will be during MTV2's "120 Minutes" this Friday, in case you missed it last night. For a full list of ¡Quatro! airings, see this post from last week.
There were a few new songs featured that will be released on ¡Tré! (December 11th in the US). We heard pretty long excerpts of "Missing You," "X-Kid," and "Dirty Rotten Bastards." We have clips of these new songs, which you can hear below. Note: Even if the players below keep giving you a spinning arrow, go ahead and click it to play the clips.
Missing You
[audio=MissingYou]
X-Kid
[audio=XKid]
Dirty Rotten Bastards
[audio=DirtyRottenBastards]
The Forgotten (Strings Only)
[audio=Forgotten]
If you can't play the files above, download here.
As was expected and as we were told by the band themselves, the film was very artful. It wasn't just a bunch of interviews and "talking head-shots," as Billie Joe put it. He said he didn't want to make a formal, highly informational documentary. He described his love for vintage surf documentaries, and said that he wanted the essence of the band captured in a similar way. ¡Quatro! was supposed to "pull back the curtain" on Green Day's world during this period of a year or so, which it did beautifully.
There was a considerable amount of live footage from most of the secret shows, complete with soundboard audio. Songs were cut short in some segments, but I assume full live songs will be shown in the full-length DVD version. This is the first time we've heard performances from the Tiki Bar in August of 2011 in studio-quality.
One part of the documentary (toward the beginning) really emphasized the magnitude of the band's initial secret show at the Tiki Bar. There's a scene of the band and management lounging around a table, talking about the planning and specifics for the show. Those of us that followed that first secret show minute-by-minute on GDC remember talking about whether we thought the filming/recording of the show on fans' phones and cameras was justified. Billie Joe, Mike, and Tré also talk about early "leaking" of recorded live songs, and how they felt about it. Billie described the new body of work they were presenting as his "baby," and about being hesitant to publicly reveal it for the first time. Also revealed is the fact that, going into the Tiki Bar show, the band intended to play ONLY new songs all night, but realized that this would be a bit confusing for the crowd after awhile.
This portion of ¡Quatro! let us in on a few other interesting events, too. We see Billie Joe's home studio at his Newport Beach house, and footage of him recording demos and writing lyrics there. In numerous interviews, he said that the vast majority of the new songs he wrote were initially written, jammed out, and recorded (with Billie on all instruments) in this tiny home studio. We also see things like the recording of the string section for "The Forgotten," guided by Tom Kitt, and Tré laying down his..."virtuosic" tambourine tracks for the albums.
The credits that were shown at the end of the movie were the same as the credits that will show up at the end of the full-length DVD version of ¡Quatro!. So, here are a couple of tidbits that we were able to pick out from the credits:
Two new songs were featured: "Ruby Mae" and "Hotfoot Jamboree." "Ruby Mae" was the instrumental song that was played during the opening scene of Billie Joe surfing. "Hotfoot Jamboree" was most likely the song that Billie Joe played on his electric guitar while wearing the headphones (we didn't hear the amplified version, just Billie's strummed chords).
In amongst all the other random credits is one that says "ACID STORY REENACTMENT COORDINATOR" and another that says "ACID STORY REENACTMENT ACTORS." Under this last one, it says that someone plays Billie, someone plays Mike, and someone plays a "store clerk." It looks like there's detailed recollection of some acid use in the full-length version! That should be interesting.
Although we can't post anymore video of ¡Quatro!, you can check out these clips, released by MTV over the last few days:
At the end of the film, right before the credits, there's a segment of footage from the Echoplex show, which is accompanied by an instrumental version of "Amy." During this part, Rob Cavallo gives a really amazing, meaningful description of the beauty in the way Green Day's music becomes more than the sum of its parts. We'd like to leave you with this quote from him:
[quoteFull]When it starts out, it's just, y'know, guitar strings and wires and amplifiers and drum skins and wood...it's wood and metal and skins and electronics and [laughs] y'know, like a lot of dials and a lot of tinkering and a lot of work with your hands. The weird thing is that you have all that happening, and we're struggling with these flimsy instruments called guitars...and then, all the sudden, you're wondering if all that shit you did will move people...if it adds up to something. When it does, it's fuckin' amazing. Cause, like, who made up this shit about, y'know, wires and wood and electronics. It's fuckin' weird that it turns into this stuff that just...moves us. It's really wild.[/quoteFull]
Over the course of the next month, both VH1, MTV2 and Palladia will be showing this TV version of ¡Quatro! periodically. The next airing will be during MTV2's "120 Minutes" this Friday, in case you missed it last night. For a full list of ¡Quatro! airings, see this post from last week.
There were a few new songs featured that will be released on ¡Tré! (December 11th in the US). We heard pretty long excerpts of "Missing You," "X-Kid," and "Dirty Rotten Bastards." We have clips of these new songs, which you can hear below. Note: Even if the players below keep giving you a spinning arrow, go ahead and click it to play the clips.
Missing You
[audio=MissingYou]
X-Kid
[audio=XKid]
Dirty Rotten Bastards
[audio=DirtyRottenBastards]
The Forgotten (Strings Only)
[audio=Forgotten]
If you can't play the files above, download here.
As was expected and as we were told by the band themselves, the film was very artful. It wasn't just a bunch of interviews and "talking head-shots," as Billie Joe put it. He said he didn't want to make a formal, highly informational documentary. He described his love for vintage surf documentaries, and said that he wanted the essence of the band captured in a similar way. ¡Quatro! was supposed to "pull back the curtain" on Green Day's world during this period of a year or so, which it did beautifully.
There was a considerable amount of live footage from most of the secret shows, complete with soundboard audio. Songs were cut short in some segments, but I assume full live songs will be shown in the full-length DVD version. This is the first time we've heard performances from the Tiki Bar in August of 2011 in studio-quality.
One part of the documentary (toward the beginning) really emphasized the magnitude of the band's initial secret show at the Tiki Bar. There's a scene of the band and management lounging around a table, talking about the planning and specifics for the show. Those of us that followed that first secret show minute-by-minute on GDC remember talking about whether we thought the filming/recording of the show on fans' phones and cameras was justified. Billie Joe, Mike, and Tré also talk about early "leaking" of recorded live songs, and how they felt about it. Billie described the new body of work they were presenting as his "baby," and about being hesitant to publicly reveal it for the first time. Also revealed is the fact that, going into the Tiki Bar show, the band intended to play ONLY new songs all night, but realized that this would be a bit confusing for the crowd after awhile.
This portion of ¡Quatro! let us in on a few other interesting events, too. We see Billie Joe's home studio at his Newport Beach house, and footage of him recording demos and writing lyrics there. In numerous interviews, he said that the vast majority of the new songs he wrote were initially written, jammed out, and recorded (with Billie on all instruments) in this tiny home studio. We also see things like the recording of the string section for "The Forgotten," guided by Tom Kitt, and Tré laying down his..."virtuosic" tambourine tracks for the albums.
The credits that were shown at the end of the movie were the same as the credits that will show up at the end of the full-length DVD version of ¡Quatro!. So, here are a couple of tidbits that we were able to pick out from the credits:
Although we can't post anymore video of ¡Quatro!, you can check out these clips, released by MTV over the last few days:
At the end of the film, right before the credits, there's a segment of footage from the Echoplex show, which is accompanied by an instrumental version of "Amy." During this part, Rob Cavallo gives a really amazing, meaningful description of the beauty in the way Green Day's music becomes more than the sum of its parts. We'd like to leave you with this quote from him:
[quoteFull]When it starts out, it's just, y'know, guitar strings and wires and amplifiers and drum skins and wood...it's wood and metal and skins and electronics and [laughs] y'know, like a lot of dials and a lot of tinkering and a lot of work with your hands. The weird thing is that you have all that happening, and we're struggling with these flimsy instruments called guitars...and then, all the sudden, you're wondering if all that shit you did will move people...if it adds up to something. When it does, it's fuckin' amazing. Cause, like, who made up this shit about, y'know, wires and wood and electronics. It's fuckin' weird that it turns into this stuff that just...moves us. It's really wild.[/quoteFull]
