I don’t know why I’m so tickled by this, but it’s just so damn cute! It’s like a punk rock fairy tale.
As you know (I posted about this a couple times in the sidebar, and here’s the full story if you missed it), the Free Press of Mankato, MN has launched a campaign to bring Green Day to play in their town, where Green Day has a cool little history. They played there in their early days, before Dookie, and they went there primarily, it seems, because Adrienne lived there at the time, and uh, one of the boys just couldn’t stay away. I remember Tre mentioning this in Behind the Music (I think that’s where it was). He said Billie Joe kept suggesting that they should go on tour to Minnesota, and Mike and Tre were like, “Why Minnesota? Hmmm…? Oh… Adrienne!”
I’m nowhere near Minnesota so it doesn’t affect me personally if Green Day play there or not, though I’m certainly rooting for the folks in Mankato and hope they get their wish. What I think is just so sweet and interesting are all the stories that people have been sending in to the Free Press reminiscing about Green Day’s times in Mankato. You can read them all on Amanda Dyslin’s blog. One of my favorites is this one:
I guess my big Green Day story involved playing on a street corner with Billie Joe once while he was in town. I was actually playing Green Day songs with a few of my friends in front of the Barmuda Triangle trying to make a few bucks off of drunk people when he came out of a bar with Adrienne (who I only casually knew) and he jumped in and played along. He was so drunk that he couldn’t hit the high notes in the chorus of “Christie Road” — that was funny.
I can imagine Billie Joe doing that even now if he got the chance.
There are also some terrible-quality videos (hey, it’s more punk rock that way, right?) of a show Green Day played at a farm in 1992, and stories about that event as well. You can see enough to tell that the crowd — and it was quite a crowd — is absolutely loving it. The videographer tried to take some close ups of Tre, but all you can see is a funny halo of green hair.
And in the latest post, Amanda Dyslin got an email from Adrienne. Keep up the good fight Mankato!
June 17, 2009 at 3:47 pm [ Category: News, History ]
News
Comment from Moonbeam June 17, 2009, 4:43 pm
I’ve been following this too through the links in the sidebar. It’s really interesting to read everybodies stories about the time Green day and Adrienne spent in Mankato. I hope they convince Green Day to play there again.