Green Day brought their Saviors Tour to a sold out crowd in St. Louis, MO on August 15th, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Dookie and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot. It was a hot, sweaty, muggy night, but that was much preferred to any delays or cancellations as severe storms had been expected all day. But the storms politely stayed away so we could all rock out to the entirety of both of those albums!
But before Green Day took the stage, the up-and-coming band The Linda Lindas started off the evening. The young band has been taking the world by storm in the past year, and this night was no different as people could be heard talking about how excited they were to see The Linda Lindas. As the band came out, they immediately announced that it was their drummer (and youngest member) Mila de la Garza’s 14th birthday!
Rancid was up next, and they had people on their feet and rocking out as the sun set. They played several old favorites from their breakthrough album And Out Come the Wolves amongst others from their extensive discography.
And then: Green Day. The crowd erupted in cheers as the headliners took the stage against a background of brightly flashing lights, playing “The American Dream is Killing Me” off of their latest album Saviors. Everyone was in for a pyro-filled night as flames shot out of the back wall at intervals throughout the entire concert and fireworks shot off with a BANG!
Of course, in celebration of the anniversaries of the release of Dookie and American Idiot, we were primarily treated to getting to listen to both albums played straight through, along with a handful of other songs. Green Day went straight into Dookie after the opening song, and the album is of course filled with hit after hit. During “Know Your Enemy,” lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong searched the crowd for a fan to bring up on stage to sing with him. He extended a hand to help a young girl up to the mic, and after she sang a few lines to wild applause from the crowd, Armstrong told her, “You gotta do a stage dive!” The girl looked nervous and refused, but jumped and sang some more as fireworks went off behind her. Later, Armstrong addressed how she had said no to stage-diving. He said, “I fuckin’ respect you for that,” and reminded us all that we can and should say no to things we don’t want to do.
We proceeded into the American Idiot portion of the evening as lightning flashed in the skies behind the stage while a giant inflatable hand holding a heart grenade rose from the middle of the stage.
Armstrong did a fantastic job of making St. Louis feel special with lyric changes like “St. Louis to the Middle East” in “Jesus of Suburbia,” as well as “The representative from St. Louis has the floor,” during “Holiday.” He also asked if there were any Cardinals fans in the house (there were, of course) and then bitterly informed us that that he’s “not bitter” that he doesn’t have a baseball team anymore – referring to the upcoming relocation of the Oakland A’s.
And we were all reminded that punk rock has always been and still is political – with calls from Armstrong to get out and vote this year, along with another lyric change to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda” during “American Idiot.”
It was a nonstop, high-energy night full of incredible songs and even more incredible performances, and it was fun to see all ages at the show – parents and longtime fans brought their kids who were decked out in Greed Day merch, showing all of us that the love for punk rock and Green Day will continue on.
And when I got to my car to leave as the first raindrops of the approaching storm fell from the sky, what was playing on the local alt rock station but Green Day.
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