As a band in the mainstream for multiple decades, Green Day holds a particularly interesting place. They first broke out with the slacker punk intensity that spoke to a certain time with albums like Kerplunk, Dookie, and Insomniac before switching gears to a more pop-leaning, arena-rock-ready style of music that appealed to the masses. Some may argue that their early work earned them punk cred, but few can argue that the Green Day boys haven’t fully solidified their place in pop culture, spanning from the nineties all the way to the mid-aughts. The culmination of such a fruitful career can be found on their current Saviors tour, which finds them celebrating both the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough album Dookie as well as the 20th anniversary of American Idiot, the album that propelled them well into the pop charts. These albums are drastically different, yet the band has been presenting them side by side as both a feat of marketable nostalgia and as a way to show just how far they’ve come. On Wednesday, September 25th, they brought their Saviors tour to Portland, Oregon for a show at Providence Park.
Following rainy sets from The Linda Lindas and punk rock royalty Rancid, the current iteration of the Smashing Pumpkins hit the stage for a set that dwelled heavily on their 90s catalog. Dressed in his monkish muumuu, Billy Corgan’s vocals sounded vibrant and unaged as he smoothly guided the band through songs like “Today,” “Tonight, Tonight,” the industrial rocker “Ava Adore,” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” The band lent their tightness to infectious and melodic now-classics like “1979.” They even pulled out some surprises, inviting Deftones singer Chino Moreno to offer animated vocals on the frenetic “Jellybelly” and bringing some of Corgan’s professional wrestler pals onstage to duke it out during “Zero.” While the Pumpkins brought a more toned down production than Green Day, their hour-long set was a reminder of their enduring appeal and ability to command the stage.
Playing the entirety of Queen’s ultimate stadium rock tune “Bohemian Rhapsody” before Green Day hit the stage served as a sort of warm-up for the amount of singing along that would ensue throughout their two-hour-plus performance. The sold-out crowd that filled the soccer stadium seemed eager to sing along, starting with Dookie. Thirty years later, the songs landed more like the soundtrack at a karaoke bar than the edgy slacker punk of the early days. In between bursts of pyrotechnics shooting from the stage set of stacked amps, Billie Joe Armstrong played the rock star showman as he pumped the crowd up to fill in verses on songs like “Longview” with its iconic bass line, “Welcome to Paradise,” and “Basket Case.” While it’s hard to blame the band for needing to put on such a scripted show, much of their performance felt theatrical and even choreographed. Even when drummer Tré Cool performed the comical hidden track off Dookie “All By Myself,” it felt more like a play than a true rock and roll moment. In this sense, they seemed to be acting out parts as more as Green Day characters than band members. Nonetheless, the audience of people now well-attuned to seeing bands play full albums straight through seemed mostly content to revel in bucket list nostalgia than savor a moment or two of unpredictable stage antics. Armstrong even brought a fan onstage to sing 21st Century Breakdown song “Know Your Enemy,” but by the time she jumped off a box in perfect timing with the pyrotechnics, it was clear even this moment had been staged.
Following a smattering of tunes, including a few brand new ones, the band fast-forwarded ten years after Dookie for the next album to play live. Green Day’s 2004 album American Idiot marks the point when they truly ascended to mega-selling mainstream status and mostly left their punk roots behind. Onstage in 2024, songs like “American Idiot” and “Jesus of Suburbia” doubled down on the theatrics as the band switched gears into their bigger pop-rock era. These songs were fun to see performed live, bringing back the almost playfully innocent liberalism of the Bush era when famous bands could make political statements without seeming divisive. One of the highlights came when “Holiday” segued into one of the album’s biggest hits, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” with the latter feeling like the most stadium-ready tune of the night. Other songs, like “Give Me Novacaine,” captured the cheesiness of the album twenty years later.
In a way, it was refreshing to see 30,000 fans fill a stadium to see a big rock show, let alone a show that skewed punk. As a band, Green Day is clearly worthy of this size venue and up for the challenge in keeping their fans entertained. The songs they played live sounded more or less exactly like the albums, with little evidence that the band members had aged beyond a few wrinkles. The show was a smashing success and checked all the boxes for those fans simply looking to see these songs performed. For anyone hoping to catch a moment of unpredictability or a spark of spontaneous rock and roll antics, the performance left a bit to be desired.
