Review: Green Day delivers a set for the ages at Outside Lands

Local music fans had been waiting for it to happen for a very long time.

Then, finally, it did — Green Day, one of the most popular Bay Area bands of all time, headlined Outside Lands in San Francisco on Aug. 6.

And it turned out to be every bit worth the wait as the Contra Costa County-born band — consisting of vocalist-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool — had tens of thousands of fans bouncing along to their platinum-plus-selling pop-punk tunes on Day 2 of the festival in Golden Gate Park.

It was a triumphant showing for these hometown heroes, who fans have long expected — and hoped — would top a Outside Lands bill one of these years. Most assumed it would’ve already happened by now, especially given that the Bay Area’s other biggest band — Metallica — has already headlined the festival twice (in 2012 and 2017).

Yet, it turns out that fans weren’t the only ones eagerly awaiting for Green Day to play the festival

“Green Day is a conversation that we’ve been having for a long time,” says Allen Scott, president of concerts and festivals for the Berkeley-based Another Planet Presents, which co-presents Outside Lands. “The idea for them was actually for them to play last year, but because their stadium date (at Oracle Park in San Francisco) got moved a year due to COVID, we pushed to this year. So, Green Day has been booked for several years.”

The group did its most to make up for lost time, rolling through pretty much all of its big hits during a high-energy 21-song set that ran some 100 minutes.

Green Day opened its show with a powerful double shot of “American Idiot” and “Holiday,” two of a half-dozen numbers that the group would offer up from its multiplatinum-selling “American Idiot” album from 2004.

From there, Green Day powered through “Know Your Enemy” from the 2009 “American Idiot” follow-up, “21st Century Breakdown,” before returning again to the earlier album for a rousing version of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

Armstrong was at the top of his game from the very start, pouring a ton of energy into his performance, drawing mightily from his bag of tricks — playing the guitar behind his neck, pulling fans out of the crowd to perform onstage with him, adding plenty of humor to the mix, etc. — and, in general, coming across like he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else on this night.

“I’m so happy right now,” he said to the crowd.

The band mostly stuck to the hits — which is usually the right move for a festival appearance– as it delivered basically the same set it did one week early for the fans at Lollapalooza in Chicago.