Green Day in
Philadelphia, PA
Show Details
Location:
Philadelphia Civic Center in Philadelphia, USA
Date:
November 14, 1995
Notes:
Incomplete setlist
Steve Revesz: "Totally was there. Insomniac tour. Riverdales opened; Ben Weasel threw a diva fit."
Craig Needles: "My first experience with live music happened 20 years ago. I'm still playing music, going to shows, and having my mind blown by other bands to this day. I don't know who/what/where I would be if this never happened. Special thanks to my dad for realizing it was very important that he take his 8 and 10 year old sons to see some punk bands play on a Tuesday night. Special thanks to my mom for letting him."
Grapost: "My niece wanted to go to this show, her first concert, and I brought her mother and brother along too. The Mother was concerned about how loud it would be and brought along ear plugs for the kids. I laughed at that. Turns out the show was loud but not to the point where ear plugs were needed. Green Day gave their usual energetic performance. A big Mosh Pit started on the floor and I was amazed how forcefully the kids threw themselves into each other. My niece wanted to go down and join them but settled for standing up and jumping around. The worst part was trying to get out of the archaic Civic Center parking garage after the show, which took over an hour."
Inquirer: "So what do the members of Green Day say when the purists imply that it's not possible to play sports arenas and be a punk-rock band? 'I agree with them,' says Mike Dirnt, bass player for the trio from Berkeley, Calif., who will bring the full-speed-ahead, obnoxious brat pop of the eight-times platinum Dookie and the new Insomniac (Reprise) to the Civic Center Tuesday. 'We have certain ideals that have a lot to do with where we come from,' Dirnt says, referring to the East Bay punk community from which Green Day sprang with the early Lookout releases 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (1990) and Kerplunk (1991). 'I can't say that hockey arenas are a punk-rock thing, but we've never gone around waving a punk-rock flag.' Those ideals manifest themselves in more ways than the uncompromised spirit with which Dirnt, drummer Tre Cool and singer Billie Joe Armstrong render such hyperspeed melodic treats as Geek Stink Breath, No Pride or Brain Stew on Insomniac. For one, there's the band's insistence on playing for cheap. 'It's really not a big deal,' Dirnt says. "I don't feel our fans deserve to not hear from us because Ticketmaster has a monopoly. So what are we going to do - not tour? I appreciate Pearl Jam's efforts, but we just said: 'The hell with it. Let's get out there.' And while Eddie Vedder and crew's hard-line anti-Ticketmaster stance has kept them off the road, Green Day has succeeded in keeping prices in the range of a club show. 'We just keep our expenses down and take a pay cut ourselves,' Dirnt says. 'When I was a kid, $15 for a concert was the end of the world for my mom. To me, it still sounds high, but it's a real low number for a tour this size.' Green Day's sudden growth to arena-sized popularity and the realization that they are every 12-year-old suburban kid's favorite green-haired band shows in such Insomniac titles as Walking Contradiction and Panic Song. Still, Dirnt says, Green Day is 'much wiser for the wear' of 1994, a year that saw them go from J.C. Dobbs to Woodstock to the cover of Rolling Stone. 'When we played our first show for 15,000 people, our road manager said, 'Here it is, Mike, everything you ever dreamed of,'' Dirnt says. 'I said, 'No, it's everything I never dreamed of.' We had no reason to believe this music was ever going to be popular. And we know it's here today, gone later today.' 'But I can't say that there's anything bad about being this popular. If people enjoy our music, I can only thank them and hope they understand that we work hard to get it to them. It's not an elitist club or anything.'"
Photos from the Show
Setlist
