This was as "punk-rock" as we've seen the band in years
SAYREVILLE -- A snotty, 22-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong hammers his powder-blue Stratocaster for an hour at City Gardens, Trenton's cinder-blocked hardcore cavern.
It's March 18, 1994. Green Day's career-dispatching "Dookie" is barely six weeks old. The gritty, sweat-soaked Calhoun Street venue where Jon Stewart once tended bar is on it's last leg, and will close before the new year. Kurt Cobain lives and breathes for 18 more days.
The budding California trio is already popular enough to play larger, more prestigious halls -- they'll rock "Saturday Night Live" before the year is out, too. But following punk-proper tradition, they loyally return to the Jersey room that marked a milestone for the band.
A year earlier, Green Day (emphasis on green) had rocked City Gardens for the first time. It was -- as far as they knew -- their largest show to date, a sold-out crowd of more than 1,000.
"We've never played for so many people before!" Armstrong yelled to the audience, before he reportedly berated too-boisterous moshers and later trashed the place's dressing room.
Bassist Mike Dirnt noted in a recent oral history of City Gardens that the group's first January '93 show in Trenton was an eye-opener.
Green Day plays Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, Sept. 28, 2016. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com) "When we went back home to Berkeley, we seriously sat down and started talking about 'where do we go from here?'" Dirnt said.
The following 1994 "loyalty" show was the last time Green Day played a New Jersey room as modest as Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, where the newly inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famers -- we're getting old, folks -- set up shop Wednesday, in support of the upcoming LP and hopeful redeemer "Revolution Radio."
"Anybody remember City Gardens?" Armstrong asked, now 44, a father of two, and still strumming that same periwinkle Strat.
A half-roar came from the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, many of whom were not nearly old enough to recall the venue -- Green Day's power chords continue to draw an almost impossibly young demographic.
More uniform shrieks were unleashed a few songs earlier, when just before "Know Your Enemy," Armstrong's patented anti-government petulance rang out.
"That motherf---er Chris Christie is your f---ing enemy!" he screamed.
A track later, during the band's most politically scathing hit "Holiday," the eye-lined frontman dug deeper.
"What do you think of our candidates for presidency for the United States of America? What do you think of New York's finest, Donald Trump?"
Green Day plays Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, Sept. 28, 2016. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com) Expectedly, a swell of boos crashed down from the sold-out field.
The purpose of the Sayreville show, Armstrong said, was "to call bulls--- on all the f---ing politicians tonight."
Through and through, this was as "punk-rock" as we've seen Green Day in years, all fire-eyes and rollick, bashing through a small room they chose to play -- the band surely still holds enough mass appeal to play arenas if they so decided -- where a couple of freshly furious "Revolution" tracks gave way to a list of fast, jerky hits and throwbacks.
For two decades, more or less since those old City Garden gigs, music critics, players, and fans alike have debated whether wildly successful Green Day is still a member of the stomping punk population it helped revitalize.
Full sprints Wednesday through the "Kerplunk!" jams "2,000 Light Years Away" and "Welcome to Paradise" suggested the affirmative, while the saxophone-kazoo duel (touring multi-instrumentalist Jason Freese vs. Armstrong) of "King for a Day," or the harmonica-and-accordion accompaniment for "Minority" veered from the straightaway, thrashing archetype.
Some in the punk camp, some in another, and honestly, who cares? A first-ballot induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame often signifies a transcension of genres, and the band -- now a touring six-piece -- was in banner spirits, grinning often on the second night of this club tour, which also hits Tower Theatre in Philadelphia Thursday and Webster Hall in New York Oct. 8. If it's any consolation, drummer Tre Cool's hair was dyed a neon blue-green.
Green Day plays Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, Sept. 28, 2016. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com) Under his own, ink-black-dyed mop, Armstrong was a wondrous rock agent; where his band's three and four-chord rippers lack in complexity, he, Dirnt and Cool sell, urge, ignite and electrify the ever-lovin' out of the tunes, spurring the audience at every pass to wail "Basket Case" and "Are We The Waiting," as well as the new, made-for-stage jams "Bang Bang" and "Still Breathing."
Ten years ago, Green Day's titanic American Idiot World Tour was entertainment for 60,000 fans a night, inside the largest venues on Earth (including the Meadowlands' Giants Stadium).
But Wednesday, in a room of just over 2,000 the group couldn't have seemed more at home, and maybe now it's worth wondering: what if the bubble never grew any larger than those City Gardens-sized shows? Would the guys have been content playing raucous club gigs like these all along?
When Armstrong emerged for the encore, he physically bowed down to the crowd. You tell me.
THE SET LIST
- "Bang Bang"
- "Revolution Radio"
- "Know Your Enemy"
- "Holiday"
- "Letterbomb"
- "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
- "Longview"
- "2000 Light Years Away"
- "Welcome to Paradise"
- "Christie Road"
- "Scattered"
- "Hitchin' a Ride"
- "Waiting"
- "Are We the Waiting"
- "St. Jimmy"
- "When I Come Around"
- "Basket Case"
- "She"
- "King for a Day"
- "Shout" / "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" / "Hey Jude"
- "Still Breathing"
- "Minority"
- Encore:
- "American Idiot"
- "Jesus of Suburbia"
- "Ordinary World"
- "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"
Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.