Green Day triumphantly returned to San Francisco Friday night to commemorate their landmark albums, ‘Dookie’ and ‘American Idiot’, that were released thirty and twenty years ago, respectively by playing both albums in their entirety and in order of the tracklist. It was notably special for the band to be playing in the same stadium (when it was named SBC Park), that they played in during the American Idiot tour in 2005.
Any time the band plays in the Bay Area, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will always reference the fact that they’re back home. At one point during the show, Armstrong noted the special night, saying “We are home! We are East Bay for life. Green Day and East Bay for life!” He would then go on to roast the owner of the nearby Oakland A’s, John Fisher, who’s moving the team to Las Vegas, declaring how much he hates Las Vegas.
LETS GO @billiejoe!!! pic.twitter.com/LqOQBiTCR6
— Gabriel Hernandez (@gamer_athletics) September 21, 2024
Although the tour is dubbed ‘The Saviors Tour’, the East Bay band has been playing only a handful of songs from their new album ‘Saviors’, which fit right in with the older material. The sold-out crowd at Oracle Park was filled with generations of fans from the older contingent who were teenagers during the ‘Dookie’ era, to the millennials who grew up with ‘American Idiot’ and perhaps had older siblings to educate them about the band’s older material, to teenagers and younger today. It was a rare and heart-warming sight to see how the music brought people together, not only Green Day, but also the tour’s other acts The Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and the upstart The Linda Lindas (who themselves are teenagers).
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Needless to say, Green Day was as tight as ever, kicking off the set with “The American Dream Is Killing Me” from ‘Saviors’ to the roar of the crowd and immediately went into “Burnout”, the first track from ‘Dookie’. Dedicating songs like “Welcome To Paradise” to Oakland, and shouting out various cities throughout the Bay Area including San Jose, Richmond and others throughout the set, Green Day performed new songs from ‘Saviors’; “Look Ma, No Brains!”, “One Eyed Bastard” and “Dilemma” to serve as a bridge to “American Idiot”, the title track from the classic album. It was a treat to see them play the songs that aren’t usually in the setlist, including “Give Me Novacaine”, “She’s A Rebel” and “Whatshername”. Ending the set with the Green Day standard of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, Armstrong was joined on stage by the openers The Linda Lindas, who proceeded to blow bubbles at him during the performance as the rest of Green Day returned to the stage.
The Smashing Pumpkins performed right before Green Day and had a set filled with so many fan favorites including the iconic hits, “Zero”, “Tonight, Tonight”, “Today”, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “1979”. Performing with original bandmates guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlain and recent additions guitarist Kiki Wong and singer/musician Katie Cole, frontman Billy Corgan brought forth a spiritual yet commanding presence to the stage. Dressed in his familiar cassocks, Corgan was vocally strong and addressed the crowd a scant few times and kept the music going.
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Rancid, longtime friends of Green Day played a raucous set that sounded just as good in a huge stadium as they did at Gilman, the Berkeley punk venue where both bands cut their teeth back in the 90s. As “Roots Radicals”, “Ghost of a Chance” and the epic “Time Bomb” emanated throughout the venue, many were seen dancing and fist-pumping along that by the time the band played “Ruby Soho” to end the set, fans were more than primed to see the headliner.
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The aforementioned The Linda Lindas opened the evening and are an exciting live band whose brand of punk rock has resonated with a growing audience ever since going viral with “Racist, Sexist Boy” in 2021. The band members were active running across the stage and up to the catwalk to get the crowd engaged as they performed songs like “Growing Up” and “Oh!”, demonstrating just how far they’ve come since being that unknown band playing the Los Angeles Public Library.
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