Green Day, in one of their early publicity photos.
In honor of Green Day, which was named today as a 2015 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I’m taking today’s installment of the 350 Jersey Songs project from the band’s March 1994 concert at City Gardens in Trenton — an important stop for many punk and indie bands, both from Jersey and beyond, in the 1980s and early 1990s. Check out a clip of them performing “Welcome to Paradise,” sometimes obscured by crowd-surfers, below.
The year 1994 was the turning point for Green Day. They released their breakthrough album, Dookie (which contains “Welcome to Paradise”), got lots of airplay on MTV, and performed on the Lollapalooza tour and at the Woodstock ’94 concert. With their riotous stage show, short, catchy punk-rock songs and overall air of youthful insolence, they didn’t really seem built to last; few would have predicted at the time that they would one day be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But of course, you could probably say that last part about the early years of most Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday from Sept. 2014 to Sept. 2015. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, for almost a year — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. The complete list is here.
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