Green Day

"Look at where we live!" Billie Joe Armstrong, the frontman of Oakland pop-punk veteran Green Day, exclaimed Tuesday night at the Forum, where he spent considerable time extolling the virtues of life in California after spending two months on the road. The show capped the band's North American tour in support of its latest album, "21st Century Breakdown," the follow-up to its Grammy winning epic "American Idiot." "We've just gotta get rid of Arnold Schwarzenegger," Armstrong continued, riling the already enthusiastic crowd.

33 Revolutions Per Minute A History of Protest Songs, From Billie Holiday to Green Day Dorian Lynskey Ecco: 688 pp., $19.99 paper

Over the course of its nearly 20-year career, Green Day has only grown more interested in the power and potential of its pop. During the punkish band's Thursday night performance at the Henry Fonda Theater, the trio repeatedly used rock's oldest tricks -- sock-hop melodies, British Invasion swagger, pep-rally shouts -- to make the counterculture seem more fun than the mainstream.

KIIS locks up Ryan Seacrest Ryan Seacrest will continue hosting the morning show at top-rated KIIS-FM (102.7) as part of a three-year contract announced Tuesday by Clear Channel Communications that also calls for him to continue hosting and producing the syndicated "American Top 40" countdown show and to develop other media projects such as a record label, a live concert series and TV and radio programming. Financial terms were not disclosed. Seacrest, who also hosts "American Idol" for the Fox television network, is "a true visionary who has firmly established himself as America's leading curator of popular culture," said Robert W. Pittman, Clear Channel's chairman of media and entertainment platforms.

Heads up, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman: You may be in for some unexpected company come November. "I'm running for governor of California!" Billie Joe Armstrong revealed Tuesday night at Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, where Green Day played one of the final dates of its U.S. tour in support of last year's "21st Century Breakdown. " That this announcement came not long after the frontman declared (in slightly saltier language) that he's a rock star and can therefore do whatever the heck he wants was no cause for worry: Armstrong is a benevolent despot who encourages fans to join him onstage and launches free merchandise into the cheap seats with an air-powered T-shirt gun. The singer's introduction into state politics would present another problem, though: the early retirement of what might be America's best live band.

Leave it to brash punk-pop icon Green Day to inject some much-needed life into the U.S. pop charts. The band's latest concept-driven collection for Reprise/Warner Bros., "21st Century Breakdown," which was released off-cycle on a Friday rather than the typical Tuesday, sold 214,000 copies through Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

POP MUSIC Green Day The Grammy-winning pop punk trio from Oakland swings through the Southland on its 21st Century Breakdown Tour, which features multi-platinum hits from its most recent album of the same name, including "Know Your Enemy" and "21 Guns. " Ukiah's glammy emo-rockers AFI will open with material from its eighth studio album, "Crash Love. " Verizon Wireless Amphitheater , 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 7 p.m. $20-$85. www.livenation.com . Melissa Etheridge Celebrating the release of her 10th studio album, "Fearless Love," the celebrated Academy and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter (and all-around fierce rocker)

GREEN DAY "Insomniac" Reprise * * * It's been only two years since Green Day released its major-label debut, "Dookie," and was quickly deemed leader of a punk resurgence by media and marketers. But the band, complete with spiky hairdos and fake English accents, didn't assume a mantle of importance. Instead, it continued to play its snot-nosed power pop while blatantly validating Jam and Buzzcocks comparisons.

Green Day's latest album entered the national sales chart at No. 1 on Wednesday after selling so many copies during its first week in stores that it's tempting to think some shoppers misread the title and thought the CD was for something in the "American Idol" series. The group's "American Idiot" is a nearly 60-minute punk-rock opera of sorts that recalls such landmark rock concept albums as the Who's "Tommy" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall."

Green Day, performing as Nimrod, lit up the Viper Room in West Hollywood on Saturday night, where it not only offered its hits but also performed Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." S'pose the guys were in a roaring good mood and we know why.

Heads up, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman: You may be in for some unexpected company come November. "I'm running for governor of California!" Billie Joe Armstrong revealed Tuesday night at Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, where Green Day played one of the final dates of its U.S. tour in support of last year's "21st Century Breakdown. " That this announcement came not long after the frontman declared (in slightly saltier language) that he's a rock star and can therefore do whatever the heck he wants was no cause for worry: Armstrong is a benevolent despot who encourages fans to join him onstage and launches free merchandise into the cheap seats with an air-powered T-shirt gun. The singer's introduction into state politics would present another problem, though: the early retirement of what might be America's best live band.

POP MUSIC Green Day The Grammy-winning pop punk trio from Oakland swings through the Southland on its 21st Century Breakdown Tour, which features multi-platinum hits from its most recent album of the same name, including "Know Your Enemy" and "21 Guns. " Ukiah's glammy emo-rockers AFI will open with material from its eighth studio album, "Crash Love. " Verizon Wireless Amphitheater , 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 7 p.m. $20-$85. www.livenation.com . Melissa Etheridge Celebrating the release of her 10th studio album, "Fearless Love," the celebrated Academy and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter (and all-around fierce rocker)

Jack Nicholson and Val Kilmer were among the actors who mixed Wednesday in New Mexico with dozens of Dennis Hopper's relatives, friends and Taos locals to remember the two-time Oscar nominee at a memorial Mass. Hopper's simple wooden coffin was ushered into the adobe chapel at historic San Francisco de Asis church in Ranchos de Taos. Hopper, who was twice nominated for Oscars and earned a star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, died Saturday at age 74 at his home in Los Angeles.

RECORD OF THE YEAR "Halo" Beyoncé Knowles & Ryan Tedder, producers; Jim Caruana, Mark "Spike" Stent & Ryan Tedder, engineers/mixers "I Gotta Feeling" David Guetta & Frederick Riesterer, producers; will.i.am, Dylan "3-D" Dresdow & Padraic "Padlock" Kerin, engineers/mixers "Use Somebody" Jacquire King & Angelo Petraglia, producers; Jacquire King, engineer/mixer "Poker Face" RedOne, producer; Robert Orton, RedOne & Dave Russell, engineers/mixers "You Belong With Me" Nathan Chapman & Taylor Swift, producers; Chad Carlson & Justin Niebank, engineers/mixers SONG OF THE YEAR "Poker Face" Lady Gaga & RedOne, songwriters (Lady Gaga)

Attention, everyone. We have a theatrical bulletin coming in: Music videos have just made an artistic breakthrough. And the form has gone live. The site of this unexpected and, yes, rather loud development is Berkeley Rep, where "American Idiot," the show based on Green Day's multi-platinum 2004 concept album, is having its world premiere. Directed by Michael Mayer, who won a Tony for his staging of "Spring Awakening," this visually mesmerizing, dramatically sketchy production melds latter-day mainstream punk with cutting-edge musical theater craft.

Regarding the piece on the rock opera "American Idiot": ["From 'Idiot' to Opera," Sept. 13] All those talented people lending their voices do not compare to one Billie Joe Armstrong, but this is not about Green Day. This is a tribute to their work through the eyes of one man, Michael Mayer. As with "21st Century Breakdown," this is a case of platinum ideas served on a silver platter. I believe its success is due to the fact that the "American Idiot" phenomenon was pulled from mass media before its time and has left the public thirsty for more.

Green Day's "American Idiot" album tops the national sales chart for the second consecutive week, but Dr. Dre's latest discovery, the Game, is expected to easily surpass the punk-rock trio next week. Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard magazine, said the Compton rapper's major label debut, "The Documentary," got off to such a fast start Tuesday in its first day in stores that it could reach the 600,000 sales mark.

It's a good day for Green Day. By the closest margin on the pop album sales charts in nearly eight years, the punk-rock trio's "American Idiot" reclaimed the No. 1 position, outselling Eminem's "Encore" last week by 178 copies. The politically charged collection, which sold 100,167 more copies last week, entered the chart at No. 1 (with total sales of 267,000 copies) when it was released in September, but it had fallen out of the Top 20 by early December.

LOCAL 'Medea' Few roles are as ferociously inviting to powerhouse actresses as Medea, the title character of Euripides' ancient masterpiece who sets out to teach her two-timing husband, Jason, a lesson he surely will never forget. Essaying the role in UCLA Live's production, directed by Lenka Udovicki, is Annette Bening, who will get to exercise her more menacing muscles. No stranger to dramatic malice, Bening won Oscar nominations for her portrayals of chilly connivers in "The Grifters" and "American Beauty."

Michael Mayer tried to contain his growing frustration. For more than nine hours at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre over two recent afternoons, Mayer's creative group was laboring to fix the glitches that were making a mess of a key sequence in the world premiere rock opera "American Idiot." Progress was fleeting. For the two days of technical rehearsals, director Mayer and his team were stuck revising just three minutes of the show -- an elaborate fantasy dance passage in the adaptation of the pop-punk band Green Day's Grammy-winning 2004 album of the same name.