Uncovering the Mud: Green Day's Iconic Woodstock '94 Performance

Join PJ Pat as he takes a nostalgic trip back to the 90s, reminiscing about the golden era of guitar-oriented rock music. He relives the peak of grunge and punk rock. Get an inside look at Green Day's wild Woodstock 1994 performance, complete with mud fights and stage chaos. PJ also shares a special excerpt from an article from Rolling Stone about Green Day's rise to fame, making this episode a must-listen for any rock fan.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:05 The Golden Era of 90s Rock
00:55 Rolling Stone Magazine Highlights
01:18 The Shift in Music Trends
02:37 Green Day's Rise to Fame
04:30 Woodstock 1994: A Muddy Performance
06:53 Conclusion and Flashback

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome rock fan to the It's 1 Louder podcast. My name is PJ Pat. Thanks so much for joining. I just picked this up from my shelf that's been sitting there for years, and I'm so glad I did because it reminded me of the best era of heavy mainstream music. Back then, the 90s, I was just, uh, in the middle of high school.

[00:00:21] And so grunge couldn't have come at a better time and it was awesome back then if you're into guitar or guitar oriented music you would turn on a radio and boom you would blast with all kinds of amazing rock and roll not just grunge but think about it ACDC released Thunderstruck back then in the early 90s, Metallica released the Black Album, GNR with Use Your Losings and if you take a look at this it has all their covers Of the Rolling Stone Magazine in the 1990s.

[00:00:55] And if you take a look at most of this, man, you got Trent Reznor, Kurt Cobain on the cover, you got Pearl Jam, you got Bush, you got Green Day, Chili Peppers, Axl Rose, Alanis Morissette with the jagged little pill. It is mainly Nirvana, U2, Marilyn Manson. It is mainly a rock oriented era. If you were to take a look at the Rolling Stone magazines for the last decade, a very, very different story.

[00:01:26] It's all hip hop, all rap. I got nothing against that. I love. Hip hop and rap, especially the old school stuff, but this just proves to you that it was mainly a guitar oriented phase back in the 90s and I loved it because back then I was just learning how to play guitar and it was like the perfect era to Grow up in and evolve as a guitar player because you had just amazing music just on a radio Not like today where you're there's amazing rock out there amazing heavy metal out there But you actually have to go and put in the work to find it.

[00:02:02] You can't just turn on your Typical rock radio and have good music. I hate to say it, but You know, rock these days just ain't the same. Maybe that's just me and old fart just talking. But one thing I could tell you, it is different. If you take a look at the metal in the nineties versus, or the rock in the nineties versus what's going on in the radio today, it's a much different vibe.

[00:02:24] Believe you me, but I'm happy to bring you a special article from this Rolling Stone book. It's entitled The Inside Stories From The Decade That Rocked. See? It's not just me telling you that. And I'm going to bring you an article about Green Day. Right here. About Green Day. How three punk twerps came to rule rock and roll.

[00:02:46] Now I don't know about you, but when I first saw the Green Day's first album Dookie in a music store, believe it or not, I know those are rare these days, but back then they would display all the new releases and just the cover itself was It was like this cartoonish cover and the name of the band was Green Day.

[00:03:08] That, that was kind of new too, right? It was awkward. And that's one thing, but when you actually played it, Man, blew me away. It absolutely blew me away. I had personally never heard anything like it. That pop punk thing was awesome. I soaked it all up. I can imagine that's how people felt when they first heard the Ramones.

[00:03:32] In the previous generation, and they probably had their minds blown, same as me when I heard Green Day for the first time, loved his voice, loved the sound of his guitar, that whole punk thing, again, as a guitar player, just learning how to play guitar in that era, Green Day was such a welcome change from all the glam metal stuff, where all the shredders were schooling us, We love that.

[00:03:57] I love that music, but can never really relate to it in terms of being able to play it. So when Green Day came along and I could actually play with those songs. Amazing. Such an amazing feeling as a beginner guitar player. All right, so let me read you this article again. It's entitled Green Day. How three punk twerps came to rule rock and roll by Chris Mundy.

[00:04:17] January 26, 1995 is the release of this article. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. Don't want to spoil it for you, but I'm going to read the beginning bit about their Woodstock 1994 performance. I'm not sure if some of you have seen the video. I remember this vividly that at some point it started raining and there was just mud everywhere.

[00:04:40] And so if you take a look at the footage on YouTube. It's just insane. It's insanity, like mud everywhere. The crowd was just full of mud and the bands were covered in mud. I remember Nine Inch Nails, the whole band, I think they just rolled into mud. I think it was before they played and so they just came on all super muddy and when Green Day performed, it was basically a mud fest.

[00:05:02] And I just remember Billy playing guitar in just mud, just being slung at him, got all on his guitar, and he just kept on playing like a rock star, and it was awesome to see. Alright, let me put my granddad glasses on here. Ah, I can see. Okay, here we go. Green Day capped off 1994, a year in which their major label debut, Dookie, sold 3 million copies by sweeping Rolling Stones annual music awards.

[00:05:31] All three dudes were just 22 and, despite having their own kids on the way, was awesomely obnoxious as ever. Not long after Green Day played Woodstock 94, a performance that scored the band mass adulation, singer Billy Joe Armstrong received a letter from his mother. It was a hate letter, says Armstrong.

[00:05:52] It seems Mrs. Armstrong ordered the concert on pay per view and had settled in to watch the event with a friend. That's when the melee occurred. On stage, the Green Day State culminated in a titanic mud fight. Armstrong yanked down his pants and bassist Mike Dirnt had his front teeth smashed when he was tackled by a security guard who thought he was a fan storming the stage.

[00:06:16] Finally, a mud covered Armstrong asked the fans to shout, Shut the fuck up! And the band exited. She said that I was disrespectful and indecent, says Armstrong, and that if my father was alive, he would be ashamed of me. She couldn't believe that I pulled my pants down and got into a fight on stage.

[00:06:36] Everything's fine now, but her letter was just unreal, he said. She even talked shit about my wife, Adrienne, and said how she's supposed to be my loving wife, but she's never even come over and visited. He pauses. It was pretty brutal. There you go. I don't want to spoil the article for you, but that just took me back to that era.

[00:06:59] 1994 was pretty much at the peak of everything. Peak of grunge Nirvana had broken out. Pearl Jam broken out. Soundgarden, Alice in Chains by that time was huge. And also the best, even the non grunge groups like ACDC, Metallica, Aerosmith, Chili Peppers released. One of their best albums at that time. What a flashback.

[00:07:23] So hopefully for some of you it took you down memory lane. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, I encourage you go check out some YouTube videos on the Green Day's performance of Woodstock 94. Not just Green Day, but Nine Inch Nails. That's another epic one and see the chaos that entailed.