The explosive stadium punk of Green Day’s ‘Saviors’ tour comes to South Philly

30 years ago this month, the Lollapalooza 1994 traveling festival touched down at South Philadelphia’s FDR Park, with anthemic alt-rockers The Smashing Pumpkins headlining; a few days later, a buzzing Bay Area punk trio jumped on the tour at Randall’s Island in New York, riding the irreverent high of their kinetic third LP Dookie.

In the months following Lolla, both Green Day and the Pumpkins quickly ascended to icon status in the modern rock world, and subsequently went on to chart hits, rack up Grammys, and have at least one Broadway production based on their music. Sure, they’ve each experienced setbacks, and offered up forgettable moments — and occasionally bewildering ones — in the course of their careers. But generally, their respective trajectories have been upward, so much so that their combined strength brought a sellout crowd out on a rainy Friday night to pack Citizens Bank Park in South Philly.

Coming at the tail end of a blustery rainy week as Tropical Storm Debby traveled up the east coast, it seemed at first like a rather grey day for Green Day; a late afternoon downpour resulted in the The Linda Lindas‘ opening set getting called off. (More on that later.) The first band to hit the stage were Berkley punk vets Rancid, whose half hour onstage was unhinged and rifftastic, drawing strongly on their 1995 classic …And Out Come The Wolves, from “Maxwell Murder” and “Roots Radicals” to “Ruby Soho.”

Rancid | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

When The Smashing Pumpkins returned from a long hiatus in 2007 and began to shape-shift its way across the 21st century, it leaned hard into not being a nostalgia band. Under Billy Corgan’s leadership, it embarked on ambitious projects like song cycles (2012‘s Oceana), and a triple album (2023’s ATUM), all conceptual and heavily-produced and rather good. The band even released a new record last week, Aghori Mhori Mei, which is doomy and focused, kind of reminiscent of their Machina era.

The Pumpkins see themselves as very much existing in the now, but Corgan doesn’t disavow the band’s hits either, and as a result, their own shows can be three-hour epics packing it all in. What does that mean for an hour-long set in the context of this tour? All of the above, in a condensed fashion. Of course we heard “Today,” “Cherub Rock,” “Zero,” and “Tonight, Tonight.” And then there were surprises — “Jellybelly,” wasn’t expecting that, a dirgey metal cover of U2’s “Zoo Station,” wasn’t expecting that either — as well as new songs like Zeitgeist‘s “Doomsday Clock” that were punchy and proggy and entertaining.

The current Pumpkins lineup features co-founders Jimmy Chamberlin (being extra on drums in the best way) and James Iha (skulking on guitar at stage left), along with more recent band members like bassist Jack Bates and keyboardist Katie Cole. For his part — and in contrast to his sometimes super-sullen, super-serious persona — Corgan seems seems surprisingly cheery to be up there performing, especially while mixing it up with new guitarist Kiki Wong. With so much instrumentation surrounding him already, he was freed up to put his own guitar down during “Ava Adore,” throwing himself full-bodied into the vocals and delivery, howling and writhing on catwalk — which, later in the set, was the site of a mini wrestling exhibition sans explanation.

As the band played “Beguiled,” two ripped folks entered, flexed, and sparred, until the heel got dramatically body-slammed. Corgan told the crowd “we’ll be back on August 21st at 2023 Arena, the old ECW arena.” Important to note: he means he and the wrestlers will be back, not he and the Pumpkins — if you weren’t aware, he’s also been a professional wrestling promoter since 2011, and is the owner of the National Wrestling Alliance.

The Smashing Pumpkins | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Three-plus decades into his career, Billy Joe Armstrong is in top form, not just as a high-octane punk frontperson, but a consummate charismatic entertainer, a showman who strives to work the entirety of the crowd, even when the crowd is 45,000 strong. How does he do that? Strutting, dancing, riffing, playing to as many individual folks in the front that he can connect with and working outward from there. How does he not do that? With much in the way of banter. The band keeps true to the classic concert trope of less talk and more rock, and with two full album anniversary performances to get to — Dookie for its 30th, American Idiot for its 20th — there was even less space for chitchat on Friday. Which was just fine; the two-plus hour setlist more than made up for it.

After opening with the new single “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” drummer Tré Cool hit two swift triplets on his snare, signifying the start of “Burnout” and the opening of first full album performance. The band kicked right into Dookie and it raced by; the songs are short and spunky, and as a package, it’s a nostalgic hit parade, banger after banger, more killer than filler. But also, from “Longview” to “Basketcase” to “When I Come Around” to “F.O.D.,” it’s very much music of a time and place, embodying a lackadaisical mindset that’s bored, directionless, distressed, and kind of righteously selfish about it (is Dookie brat?).

It had all those songs we love to pieces, sure, but the American Idiot portion of the show resonated in maybe an even bigger way. By 2004, the band’s songwriting was more lush and sophisticated, and topical too, looking outside themselves to reflect on anger and division in the post-mellinnial national landscape, topics that more than ring true today. At moments of the set, Armstrong certainly could have put a finer point on it (you want us to know the song “Holiday” is anti-war…which war are we talking about here? You want folks to scream if they’re voting this fall…can you please elaborate?) but playing to a stadium crowd leaves not much room for nuance. Even so, the album’s high-drama highs like the epic “Jesus Of Suburbia” and “Are We The Waiting” and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” thrillingly consumed the second half of the concert, with an interlude and post-lude of other old faves (“Brain Stew,” hell yeah) and a bevy of selections from their new Saviors (“Bobby Sox” was great at the night’s end).

Green Day | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

And then there was the matter of the The Linda Lindas. It was a bummer that the rain caused their opening set to got dropped, not only because they’re a promising new indie punk band with terrifically hooky music, but because they were the only femme-centered artist on the lineup of otherwise white dude-fronted offerings. Killer as Rancid was, and more of a legacy name that they might be, couldn’t they have opted to take the night off and give their tourmates and label mates time in the spotlight? Green Day must have recognized this at some level, and what they did for The Linda Lindas was even better.

In the middle of their set, Armstrong and the band stopped down, and brought The Linda Lindas onstage with a big, warm, enthusiastic introduction. The band proceeded to quickly take over Green Day’s stage and the instruments to play their single “Oh!” for the packed field at Citizens Bank Park. It was only one song, and its three minutes were over in a flash, but band played to ten times the audience who might have seen at 5 p.m., at least, and they made the absolute most of it. The riffs were tight, the vocals were urgent, the band was working the masses with call-and-response that got the masses fully locked in and responding. Shout out Linda Lindas for being awesome, shout out Green Day for giving their awesomeness a bigger platform.

By the time light fireworks popped in the cloudy sky at the conclusion of “Good Riddance,” it felt like we’d run a marathon as a crowd: the vibe was dazed, confused, exhausted, and elated. Armstrong evidently felt the same: at the end of the night, he made a passing reference to going too hard, and indeed, Saturday morning the band’s socials trumpeted “Philly, you were unreal last night! Thanks for powering through the rain with us! Sadly, right after stepping off stage, Billie lost his voice and won’t be able to perform at this evening’s show in Hershey.” The concert has been rescheduled for Monday, September 2nd.

But bigger picture, that just shows how rock-solid the connection between the bands and their fans has become, and how it continues to grow. Three decades on from the time they were playing dusty parks on summer fest circuit, both Green Day and the Pumpkins have firmly stepped into their own as legacy artists with massive cross-generational reach, something you could see in the range of faces that made up the crowd exiting Citizens Bank Park. Whether these bands remind you of being a goofy or gloomy or pissed-off kid listening to their records as they were new, or whether you’re currently a goofy or gloomy or pissed-off kid and connecting with the records right now, it will always have something to say, it will never not be relevant.

Green Day | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Green Day | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Green Day | photo by John Vettese for WXPN

Green Day | photo by John Vettese for WXPN