DAYS OF GREEN AND CHAOS

FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/ AMANDA CAGAN

"GREEN DAY's on the rampage," says the band's drummer TRE' COOL. In fact, GREEN DAY–presently on their U.S. headlining tour–are above the law and they're terrorizing the nation right now!

We caught up with TRE' in New York City at the Ed Sullivan Theater where the group were doing the "Late Show With David Letterman." That's where about 300 kids were waiting outside the backstage door with GREEN DAY shirts on, ready to get their autographs. The fans all had baby barrettes in their green and red hair and there were some metal-ers too.

Barreling their way into New York City, GREEN DAY delivered a one-two-three knockout punch. Lead singer BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG performed "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" acoustically on the "Late Show With David Letterman" with (wait a second–this can't be punk) a proper string quartet. It was a classy touch, and the reliably volatile TRE' COOL (whose musical services were not required) decided to undermine it, running maniacally across the stage at the song's conclusion and then into the audience.

The next morning, GREEN DAY hauled their asses into the "Howard Stern Show," performing "Time Of Your Life" and engaging in hysterically funny repartee with Stern (with topics ranging from groupies to penis size to bassist MIKE DIRNT's bloodied nose/smashed cartilage on the MTV telecast "Live From The Ten Spot").

Later that day, GREEN DAY headed to the "MTV Live" studio to perform their new single "Redundant," with BILLIE and MIKE on acoustic guitars. Poor TRE'–again, his drumming expertise wasn't needed. But he made his presence felt anyway, appearing in the interview segment wrapped in bondage while seated in a wheelchair. Hey, the kid's got star quality…and a terrific storytelling style.

Here's TRE's report from the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, where they played in front of thousands of fans.

"This tour is like a camping trip. When we played at the Beale Street Festival, we stole golf carts as usual. Beale Street is like a big old party in the heart of Memphis, and there were about a million police all over the place. We took golf carts from the river up to Beale Street through public streets, which is a good mile, with open beers in our hands. We were all driving the golf carts in the lanes where the cars should go until some cops saw us and pulled us over. As this was happening, I accidentally crashed the cart I was driving with Jason from Samiam (who are touring with GREEN DAY) in the passenger seat into a really high curb. The cops then tell us, `We pulled you over `cause we just wanted to get a picture with y'all.' So basically, as the cops were pulling us over, we crashed into a ditch in a stolen golf cart–drinking and holding open containers in our hands. But instead of busting us, the cops helped us pull the golf cart out of the ditch and sent us back onto the public road–on our merry way–with our stolen golf cart and our beers. We're above the law. GREEN DAY ABOVE THE LAW: Headline."