NEW YORK, NY – MAY 19: Tre Cool of Green Day Performs On ABC’s “Good Morning America” at Central Park on May 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
1994 was a huge year for me musically. This was the year I discovered my all-time favorite band Green Day. Early in 1994 I remember hearing Green Day a lot on the radio and seeing their music videos on MTV. Coming off the grunge movement, Green Day were in the perfect place and time to explode as the next big rock band of the 90’s. I fell in love with all of their singles and music videos. Green Day was the first band I felt spoke to me. Plus, since they were new on mainstream rock scene as I was getting into music, I knew this was the band I could grow up and officially say this was my band. I remember going over to a family friend’s house and listening to her CD copy of Dookie on her boombox stereo over and over. I eventually saved up enough recycle money to go down to the Warehouse video and music store at South Shore in Alameda and bought a used copy of Dookie. During the summer of 1994 Green Day played Woodstock ’94 and after watching their performance I knew this was the band for me.
Recently Green Day‘s drummer Tre Cool reflected on the band’s legendary performance at Woodstock ’94 and called it a “sh*t show.” Tre Cool added that because of the rainy weather, this created a crazy environment for the band to play at the festival, however all of this worked in Green Day’s favor and wound up changing the band’s career for the better.
Woodstock ’94 was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock happening. Woodtsock ’94 had 350,000 people in attendance, despite heavy rain that led to the festival being renamed “Mudstock.”
1994 was an important year for Green Day. In early 1994, Green Day released their third album (first on a major label) “Dookie” which gained them international exposure and their stock and popularity began to rise.
Tre Cool was featured on a recent episode of the Member Guest podcast and said “’94 Woodstock was a complete sh*t show.” Tre Cool added “It was a Pepsi-sponsored thing, it was, like, worldwide televised pay-per-view and all that stuff, and every band of significance was there. It was crazy. And of course people start going around the fence and sneaking in, and it kind of became mayhem. And then bad weather came and it was raining like crazy and the whole place became a mud pit. It was pretty chaotic, and set up really well for Green Day to take the stage and make all hell break loose.”
During Green Day’s set a mud fight began in the crowd which led to the audience to throw mud at guitarist/frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnt. At one point during the mud fight Mike Dirnt was tackled by security because they he was a fan on stage, knocking out two of Mike Dirnt’s front teeth.
Tre Cool also said “Luckily my drum set was just far enough back where I was less in harm’s way. It was punk as f*ck, and nobody expected that to happen. … It was a crazy set – a set that changed our whole lives, really. After that day, tons of people were showing up at our shows. That was kind of the pivot moment – that was the green-jacket moment for this band.”
Looking back on it now, their stars were aligned for Green Day in 1994. Between constant radio airplay and their music videos on heavy rotation, their performance at Woodstock ’94 gave them a fun reputation as a band. After that, the rest was history.
Watch Green Day’s performance at Woodstock ’94 below.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Green Day’s epic performance the band released their Woodstock 1994 live performance for the first time ever on vinyl for Record Store Day 2019.
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Tomorrow it’s @recordstoredayus!! Run to pick one of these beauties up at your local record store
As you can see in my Instagram post below I picked up my copy at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records in Oakland.
Follow Green Day here.
