Welcome to Paradise: My Tour of the Bay Area’s Green Day Landmarks & History

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If you’re reading this post, I probably don’t need to tell you that the American band Green Day’s journey began in the suburbs of Oakland, California – and, most famously, at a Berkeley punk club called 924 Gilman Street. Inside the door at Gilman were the rules: no racism, no sexism, no homophobia. Many East Bay punks will tell you they ‘sold out,’ but the fans who make the ‘pilgrimage’ to the Bay Area will only praise the band for bringing that inclusive culture out into the world.

The surroundings that inspired Green Day are a constant presence throughout their discography. Fan favourite ‘Christie Road’ is about an actual road near Rodeo, where Billie Joe and Mike grew up. ‘Welcome to Paradise’ is about West Oakland. ‘Tight Wad Hill’ was a real place in Crockett. The ‘7-Eleven where I was taught’ in ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ is a real store that’s still there. Then there are the places that aren’t directly referred to, but are equally significant, like Studio 880 and 1234 GO! Records.

These are the stories and photos from my tours of the Bay Area’s Green Day landmarks.

Contents

Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe, once co-owned by Mike Dirnt

When I became a Green Day fan

I still remember the day I discovered Green Day: April 7th, 2007. I was 12 years old, alone at home, looking at ‘blends’ on Piczo. I scrolled past a Fall Out Boy one, but the lyrics on the next one intrigued me: ‘I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.’

My house was usually silent except for video game music at the time. No-one wanted to be reminded of my dad who was a DJ. I almost felt like I was doing something wrong when I typed in ‘greenday i walk alone’ on radio.blog.club. But this song was unlike anything my dad played. I liked the soundtracks to my video games, but I couldn’t relate to an incompetent detective agency employed by Dr. Eggman. I could relate to this. I was a lonely emo preteen being called ‘terrorist’ and ‘P*ki’ every day at school, and as I played ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ again and again, I felt like someone had found me.

I pestered my mum until she’d listened to every song on my Piczo site. By the time she heard ‘Give Me Novacaine,’ she was as in love with Green Day as I was, and together we reclaimed music.

So when I read about 924 Gilman Street and that mantra of ‘no racism, no sexism, no homophobia,’ it never occurred to me that Green Day were sellouts. If they’d never signed to a major label, the embodiment of that mantra and culture would never have reached a single parent family in England. We dreamed of making the ‘pilgrimage’ to immerse ourselves in the history of the music that had stolen our hearts, but it seemed impossible. We did visit the Bay Area in 2010, for the final North American show of the 21st Century Breakdown Tour, but once we’d been to Golden Gate Bridge, we could only afford to get to the show and back.

Travel gradually became cheaper and in 2017, we finally made it to Oakland. Our tour guide (and the best tour guide ever in my biased opinion) was Annabelle, my girlfriend who has lived there all her life. We only had two days and didn’t see the most popular or obvious landmarks, but it was one of our favourite trips.

A walk around the lake, Rudy’s, bridges and 40th Street

The first place Annabelle took us to was Lake Merritt. It isn’t only a must-see in Oakland but a Foxboro Hot Tubs reference – it’s where the Reverend Strychnine Twitch invites Mother Mary to ‘take a walk around the lake.’

A cloudy blue sky reflected in Lake Merritt in Oakland.

Annabelle gave us directions on what to do if someone pushed us in and pointed out the best places to get shot. A city council employee pulled up on a tractor to ask my mum for a cigarette. We passed a man announcing to himself, ‘gonna round up all the girls like in World War II, then kill ’em all, boom,’ and another passionately singing as he walked. We did find the ‘garden in the park there,’ but it was shut. It was probably shut when The Rev offered to take Mother Mary, too.

Next up was Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café at the Fox Theatre. Until 2022, Rudy’s – named after the Clash song ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’ – was co-owned by Mike Dirnt. Beneath the clear plastic tabletops were toy cars, vinyl records, posters and more. This was completely surreal. I was finally there in Oakland, eating at Mike Dirnt’s café. Sadly, the Fox Theatre branch closed less than a year later in 2018.

Condiments and menus on a table decorated with vinyl records at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe.

Like Lake Merritt, the Fox Theatre itself is not just a historic building in Oakland, but a stop on the Green Day landmarks tour. It’s where they played the iconic third show of the 21st Century Breakdown Tour – one of only four times they played the album in full. It’s also where February 19th was declared ‘Official Green Day Day’ in Oakland during a celebration of Dookie in 2016.

We walked up Telegraph Avenue (the Avenue in ‘Stuart & the Ave.’) until we came to 40th Street. There we found Broken Guitars (now Oakland Guitars), a guitar store that was co-owned by Billie Joe and tour manager Bill Schneider at the time.

Opposite the shop is 1-2-3-4 GO! Records, where Billie Joe built the stage with one of his sons, and Green Day played an early show for ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! (billed as a ‘Bay Area Music Fan Appreciation Event’). It also hosted the pop-up shop for their Oakland Coliseum show. They had Insomniac on cassette and I was tempted, but I went for a shirt instead.

We briefly went to see Lake Merritt at night on the way back. ‘So we can get shot,’ as Annabelle put it. We planned to order pizza, but ended up eating Tostitos instead.

Our first stop the next day was one of Annabelle’s favourite sights in the world: the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, which is also a Green Day landmark. Billie Joe Armstrong’s nickname for his wife, ’80’ (and in turn the song title ’80’) came from this bridge since Interstate 80 runs over it. He has also talked about how the band and his father, a truck driver, knew they were home after long journeys when they saw it.

A boat crosses the bay in front of the Bay Bridge on a sunny day.

Under a cloudy night sky, the illuminated Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge stretches across the water in which it is reflected. The twinkling lights of Oakland are visible in the distance.

Annabelle will dump me if I don’t tell you that this is the best bridge. Anyway, we hung around in San Francisco for a while taking photos of my Tails the Fox action figure on Mission Street. Then we returned to Golden Gate Bridge, mostly because I just wanted to see it again, but it also gets a mention in the Foxboro Hot Tubs song ’27th Ave. Shuffle’ – ‘Golden Gate is falling from behind.’

Golden Gate Bridge at night. The red bridge is reflected on the water below. There are city lights on hills in the distance.

That short trip barely scratched the surface, but we still didn’t want to leave. Being there felt like the homecoming we expected. The following year, when I was no longer a broke student, we went to see The Longshot in San Francisco and the pilgrimage began for real.

Welcome to Paradise

On a sweltering hot day in July 2018, our flight touched down at SFO. Annabelle met us at the airport and we drove through San Francisco, then across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. We caught our first California sunset in a Target parking lot. I also tried to get in a shopping trolley and failed. I hope when people next see Annabelle at Target, they remember her shouting ‘no, Maria, you’ll roll off into the road’ at this weird English person.

Palm trees silhouetted against a cloudy orange sky.

While my mum and Annabelle were in line at Starbucks the next day, a lady complimented my leggings and backpack. I thanked her. She asked if I had a cell phone. When I said yes, she asked me to post on Facebook that it was a beautiful morning in Oakland, then installed her ‘brain’ so I could take said ‘brain’ back to England.

‘Welcome to Oakland,’ Annabelle said as we left.

We sat on a wall, recovering from the brain installation, singing ‘Love is for Losers’ (I don’t remember why) and working out what we were doing. Then we drove up Adeline Street – the street Billie Joe’s now-closed record label and clothing line were named after – to Berkeley.

The Ashby/’Longview’ house

Walking up the street to the ‘Longview house’

We stopped on a quiet, unassuming street. Hills rose up to the blue sky in the distance. It couldn’t have been more unremarkable. We glanced around, wondering which of these houses was the one, until Annabelle said, ‘here we are.’

So this is the ‘Longview house,’ locally known as the ‘Ashby house,’ where Green Day’s ‘Longview’ music video was recorded in the basement. The sofa was rolled in just to be destroyed, but everything else was real. Green Day were squatting there at the time, sharing their space with another band called the East Bay Weed Company. Much of Dookie was composed in this house. It served as their base while they dealt with record companies in the build-up to Dookie.

In the apartment upstairs was Billie Joe’s ex-girlfriend Amanda, who inspired ‘She,’ ‘Sassafras Roots, ‘Stuart & the Ave.,’ ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),’ ‘Whatsername’ and of course, ‘Amanda,’ to name a few. Many of the street’s residents were UC Berkeley students, who weren’t fans of the band’s rehearsals disturbing their studies.

‘The record company guys would come to see us rehearse in the basement and their wives would go shopping on Telegraph Avenue. And when we went on tour we would come back to discover these crusty punks had squatted our place, and every single thing we owned was gone. And my love letters ended up on the Internet…’ – Tré Cool, Green Day: American Idiots and the New Punk Explosion, p.82

Someone actually left the house while we were taking photos, right as I announced, ‘I’m so glad there’s no one here, or this would be really awkward.’

Looking at the unsuspecting house – the window that’s actually visible in the Longview video – was beyond surreal. Perhaps the most striking thing, though, was just how normal this street was. The house is so loaded with meaning for any Green Day fan, yet there’s nothing to say it’s more than a regular home. We walked back to the car feeling stunned.

924 Gilman Street

I could almost have walked past 924 Gilman Street. Then I looked up. Once I realised what this squat building was, it was like a punch to the gut. The number above the door; the caning shop sign; the graffiti on the windows and the door – unlike the ordinariness of the house, just that frontage embodied everything 924 Gilman was. I could feel what Billie Joe, Mike and countless other kids must have felt, walking through that doorway for the first time and thinking this was ‘salvation,’ because that was me, 6,000 miles away at 12, discovering the culture Green Day brought from here to the world.

‘Armstrong and Dirnt began living for their weekends at the Gilman Street Project. Run out of the back of a caning-and-wicker-shop, the club would go unnoticed by anyone passing by. For those familiar with the side entrance, however, the shop opens into a world that Armstrong refers to as “salvation”: dilapidated wood floorboards; graffiti splashed across every inch of wall space; band after band with the look and sound of early British punk like the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks.’ – Rolling Stone Magazine, 1995

Me and my mum in the doorway of 924 Gilman Street

Most of the fan graffiti in the doorway was Green Day-related. It went from thanking them to referencing fandom drama. Some might call that ironic considering Green Day’s eventual negative reception at the club, but I suppose that’s what punk’s all about: doing whatever you want regardless. So of course, we went and added our own with the crappy biro pens we picked up in airports and hotel rooms.

‘Growing up and going to shows around Gilman Street was the best education I got. Walking through that door the first thing I saw was a sign saying “No Sexism, No Racism, No Homophobia,” and I think that’s had an impact on me for the rest of my life. Now when people come to our shows the main thing is I want them to feel like they’re in a safe space. If you’re gay, straight, white, black, brown, transgender, if there’s one place you feel you can go to, it’s a Green Day gig.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2016

Fantasy Studios

We pulled up on another quiet, unsuspecting Berkeley street. Opposite was a building that looked like my primary school, identified only by the word ‘Fantasy.’ On the corner was a stop sign, illuminated neon red by the bright sunlight.

This was Fantasy Studios, where Billie Joe recorded his first single ‘Look for Love‘ and Green Day recorded Dookie. It must have been quite the fantasy for those kids squatting in warehouses and basements, coming home to find their space invaded by crusty punks.

Green Day recording *Dookie* at Fantasy Studios in 1993

‘[Fantasy Studios] definitely had that Seventies coke-y vibe, mahogany and strange dead wood around the place. We would go into the vaults and see all of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s master tapes. But I felt we belonged there. Our first album cost $700 to make. Kerplunk! was like $1200. “Let’s record these as fast as we can – because we don’t have a choice.” This time, I learned how to dial in good sounds, get the best guitar tones. I was able to take a little time doing vocals. I loved that experience.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2014

Fantasy Studios has since closed permanently.

Berkeley Marina

Annabelle had been wanting to show me Berkeley Marina for a long time. Of course, it’s also referenced in ‘The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink,’ from Fat Wreck Chords’ Short Songs for Short People compilation. The clear day offered views of Oakland, San Francisco and both bridges. Students learning to kayak crowded the paths, though the crowds thinned out before the closed-off pier. We didn’t smash a bottle or go to jail, but then it wasn’t 3AM.

‘Said that I’d meet ya at the Berkeley Marina / 3AM when no one will be found / All I got in mind is a Boone’s Farm jug of wine / Smash a bottle in the parking lot / But considering our luck, we’ll get busted by the cops / Instead of sex we’ll go to jail / Another lesson learned and failed.’ – Green Day, ‘The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink‘

The BAZP production of the American Idiot musical

Before we flew, my mum saw Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café advertising a performance of the American Idiot Musical. So that was our next stop: the Flight Deck on Broadway. It would be performed by the Bay Area Zeta Players, a theatre company run entirely by local high school students. I was impressed with the set design as soon as we walked in. They’d fit the vibe of a huge production into a tiny room.

Seeing American Idiot performed in Oakland – having been to the band’s squat in Berkeley, 924 Gilman and knowing I’d go to the warehouse Billie Joe lived in the next day – gave me a whole new understanding of where this album came from and, as a European, a real insight into the country it’s based on. ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ was the first Green Day song I ever heard. I loved and related to it so much when I discovered it at 12 that I overplayed it to oblivion. Every time I’ve seen the American Idiot musical it’s still managed to give me goosebumps, but this was something else. I relived every moment of how Green Day changed my life while watching this show. Obviously, this production isn’t on anymore, but if you do get the chance to see BAZP in anything else, definitely do it.

Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe (Emeryville)

Our next stop was the original Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café in Emeryville. It opened in 2002 with the Oakland location following in 2011. The tables outside were packed. Since we ate at the Fox Theatre one the year before, we took photos and left.

Before continuing our Green Day tour, we stopped to get some snacks in Trader Joe’s (I also just wanted to visit a Trader Joe’s because I had a supermarket obsession back then and the one I went to in DC was the best). Sadly, this one wasn’t quite as exciting and instead, Annabelle and I spent a good hour in Sephora testing eyeliners and lipsticks all over our hands.

West Oakland

We got back out of the car at West Oakland BART Station, where ‘a gunshot rings out at the station’ in ‘Welcome to Paradise.’ Annabelle walked us down 7th Street, ‘the cracked streets and the broken homes,’ and we stopped outside a patched-up old warehouse. This was the squat Billie Joe had just moved into when he wrote ‘Welcome to Paradise.’

‘Billie Joe left home at 17, and he lived on couches and in a scary live-work band space. He once lived in an old brothel and hotel, located on a desolate block in West Oakland under the BART trains.’ – Spin Magazine, 1994

The BART track is right outside, hence the line about the station. When Billie Joe lived here the bathroom was infested with rats, so he chose to use a cat litter instead. It’s also referred to in ‘Sweet 16’ – ‘throwing down a bottle of Old English back in the warehouse.’ One of My Lies was written here.

‘I was living in West Oakland at the time. It was my first time ever being out on my own, out of my parents’ house and I just tried to capture that feeling – sort of frightening but at the same time you come to the conclusion that it’s freeing and you can end up growing as an individual.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

Seeing this was a sobering reminder of where Green Day came from and how hard they worked to be where they are now – but also a powerful reminder that it’s entirely possible and, as Billie Joe said, that it can even empower you.

Jingletown

Our next drive was to Jingletown, a real neighbourhood near Fruitvale. In a dead-end by the highway is Studio 880, also known as ‘Jingletown Studios.’ This is where Warning, the Foxboro Hot Tubs’ Stop Drop and Roll!!!, the ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! trilogy and parts of American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown were recorded. It got the name ‘Jingletown’ when the Foxboro Hot Tubs used it to cover up their identity.

21st Century Breakdown is my favourite album of all time. The album art was also a massive inspiration to me at 14, which probably still shows today. So seeing the studio where recording began and the album art was painted… it was emotional and left me a bit shaken in the best way. I also bonded with an old guy across the street when he waved to me.

You might recognise the parking lot if you’re a Green Day fan. It appeared in the ¡Cuatro! documentary and several of the ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! promo videos. Much of the 21st Century Breakdown album art was painted on the walls, but sadly now it’s been sold and from what I could see, it’s gone.

The studio is on 27th Avenue, which likely gave the Foxboro Hot Tubs song ‘27th Avenue Shuffle‘ its name. Jingletown itself is also, of course, the name of Jesus of Suburbia’s hometown in American Idiot.

This store was an unintentional Green Day reference. I took a photo because it said Jingletown, but it also has a brief cameo in the ¡Cuatro! scene ‘That Just Happened‘ (around the 0:22 mark).

Despite Annabelle saying ‘we need to get your photos then get the hell out of here,’ we spent the evening eating 29¢ cakes in the Food Maxx parking lot. It felt a whole lot like we were Johnny, Will and Tunny. We even escaped alive.

Powell St. BART Station

The next day, we headed to San Francisco for the Longshot show. Say what you want about Oakland, but San Franpissco has a carpet of excrement and Oakland doesn’t. Our last stop before postponing our tour for Longshot was Powell St. BART Station so we could go do what we liked, making sure we did it wise. This is the phone (or the only usable one on the same wall) that Billie pulled off during that line in the ‘When I Come Around‘ music video.

Me and my mum at the Longshot show in SF

40th Street (again) and mac ‘n’ cheese

On arriving back in Oakland from Orange County, I found two guys I recognise in a Visit Oakland magazine.

We went for dinner at Homeroom, one of Annabelle’s favourites that she’d been nagging me to try for years. My vegan GFF did not disappoint and now I dream of Homeroom. It’s right by 1234 GO! Records, so we went back. The guy working was kind enough to show us the back room, where the stage is. It looked so much smaller than it did on photos. Its official capacity is 49.

I know I look terrible in that photo, but I’d just wiped off some make-up that survived for three days.

They also have a Live at Maxwell’s doormat in there, which confirms its status as the best record store in Oakland. We spent the remainder of our evening talking on various benches, moving regularly to avoid drug dealers and men with mini America flags unironically attached to them (and not wanting to look creepy when we sat near Broken Guitars).

Pinole

Next, we finally ventured out of Oakland to Pinole. Knowing the area inspired ‘Jesus of Suburbia,’ I expected it to be a shithole – you know, like a mini Oakland, because that’s what the suburbs no-one wants to live in are like in England. Instead, the city dissolved into an endless vista of rolling hills, scorched by the sun.

Sleepy streets led into the town. We parked in an equally sleepy shopping centre. To us, it was just pretty, but I could see why it felt like the end of the world in a completely different way to Kirkby-in-Ashfield. Instead of chavs grumbling outside the Job Centre, there was no-one. Just silence amongst the rows of parked pickup trucks.

Now I understood exactly why the song was called ‘Jesus of Suburbia‘ and how a loser like its namesake pitted himself as Jesus; sitting in ‘my living room, for my private womb, while the moms and Brads are away.’ At the same time, though, those lyrics can still apply to anywhere because, for so long to me, they applied to my home so far-removed in England.

We stood for a while outside Fiat Music, a little section of the shopping centre between Trader Joe’s and a martial arts academy. This was where five year-old Billie Joe was taught to play piano and sing by Marie Louise Fiatarone and her husband.

‘Billie Joe’s mother brought him in because she was signing him up for piano lessons. Jim took one look at him and said, “He looks like he really belongs in show business. Why don’t you take him in the studio and see if he can sing?”’ – Marie Louise Fiatarone, 2006

With reassurance from Annabelle that we weren’t being creepy, we went inside. The building looked surprisingly modern outside, but once we opened the door, its age was clear. We were greeted by one of the kindest and most well-spoken people I’ve ever met: Mrs Fiatarone herself. Feeling embarrassed, my mum explained we were Green Day fans and knew Billie learned to sing here. Mrs Fiatarone smiled and said yes, he was one of her very successful students. She showed us the back studio, where ‘Look For Love’ was composed. Propped up on the shelves was Green Day fanart by new students, inspired by Fiat Music’s past.

When we said we were from England, Mrs Fiatarone showed us a photo in a folder: a group of Green Day fans holding up the t-shirt from the ‘Look For Love’ cover, in which we spotted one of our friends, Tony. You might know him from Bullet in a Bible – he’s the guy who comes in too soon when playing ‘American Idiot.’ Even though we and Mrs Fiatarone were aware of Green Day’s ability to connect people around the world, it still seemed crazy that these random English girls recognised someone in the Fiat Music guestbook.

Mrs Fiatarone then told us her own crazy story. When Billie Joe began looking into his Italian ancestry, he posted his grandfather’s birth certificate on his Instagram, asking if anyone could translate. Mrs Fiatarone’s son offered to help, since he spoke Italian. He soon found out that Billie Joe’s grandparents were from Viggiano, the same little town of 3,000 people, as his own. What are the chances of that?

‘I learned show tunes as a kid. My dad was a jazz drummer, and I used to go to veterans’ hospitals and sing. I wanted to play guitar, but they said my hands were too small.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

We looked at the ‘Look For Love’ cover and she smiled, saying ‘he’s still that same sweet little kid.’ Then she held it up so we could take a photo.

We thanked Mrs Fiatarone, feeling like we couldn’t thank her enough, and said goodbye with a promise we’d send her the photo. Maybe one day someone else will recognise us in the guestbook. Please let me know if you do!

This was by far one of my most unexpected, but surreal and incredible, Green Day experiences. We didn’t expect anything more than having a peek inside – let alone meeting Mrs Fiatarone herself and being treated with such kindness. We were just in time, too. It was about fifteen minutes before she started teaching and the next day, they were holding a concert for the 10th anniversary of Trader Joe’s. Meeting her was an absolute privilege and it’s a story I’m honoured to share.

We walked down an overgrown, cracked pathway to Pinole Valley High School – the latter high school Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt attended. Green Day also played an early show here. It’s currently being renovated, but we could make out the spot Green Day played and get a feel of the area.

Across the street was the library from ‘At the Library.’ Green Day played that song the first time we saw them. Everything was coming full circle. Sadly, the library is closed now.

A minute’s walk away was perhaps the most mundane, but most exciting site for me (not counting unexpectedly meeting Mrs Fiatarone).

The center of the earth in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven where I was taught.

This is that 7-Eleven.

Like Pinole, the ‘end of the world’ wasn’t what I expected. I’ve been to some very dodgy 7-Elevens, and I expected this one to be the same – not set against the quiet backdrop of a hill. It was an entirely new take on ‘Jesus of Suburbia.’

Billie Joe worked here for a while in his teens. He and Mike used to skip school to hang out in the parking lot. We went inside, because we had to, and bought a rainbow dragon, now named Pinole.

‘It’s that lost feeling. Hanging out at the 7-Eleven. Disenfranchised. Alienated. You just get that feeling of “I’ve got to get out of here. There’s more to life than this town.”’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2006

Before we got back in the car, we looked for a bathroom stall. This couldn’t be the one, since the layout has changed since then, but we just went for the only place that didn’t require a 500-digit code and pickaxe to get in: Trader Joe’s. It was a bathroom stall in the shopping mall.

A bathroom stall in the shopping mall from ‘Jesus of Suburbia,’ also known as peak California tourism

Unfortunately there was no graffiti to confirm that the center of the earth is the end of the world. Hopefully the random English people who came in and bought one banana were enough confirmation to any bystanders.

‘[American Idiot] sort of follows the path of this guy, Jesus of Suburbia. He’s, like, 19 to 21 years old, he’s stuck in a small town, and he’s sick of everything there – the people, the 7-Eleven he grew up with, his friends, the institutions that he’s been in the whole time. He finally finds the courage and the anger to leave his hometown, and he moves to the city and tries to find people who are kindred spirits.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2004

People love to claim Green Day betrayed their roots when they wrote American Idiot. The truth is, it’s no further from those roots than Dookie. You only need to stand on this street in Pinole to know that.

Rodeo

We weren’t sure if it’d be creepy to go to Rodeo. ‘But it’s just a town, and it’s not like you’re going to find his mom,’ Annabelle said, so we went. If we thought Pinole was a sleepy hamlet, this was even more so. We parked first opposite a gas station and wandered around; just taking in the atmosphere of the little town of 8,500 people.

‘I grew up in a town called Rodeo. It’s right off the 80. It’s off the 80 at Willow. And it was the inspiration for this next song. This is “Jesus of Suburbia.”’ – Billie Joe Armstrong on stage at The Warfield, San Francisco, 2005

‘Rodeo is on the water, you know,’ Annabelle said, ‘And there’s something you’ve forgotten there.’

Still unsure if it was weird to be here, I hesitated. She drove us up there anyway. We came to a view of a reference I’d completely forgotten: the oil refinery referred to in 21st Century Breakdown.

The last one born and the first one to run.
My town is blind from refinery sun.

OK, I may now be an adult with a cold, dark heart who won’t talk about how 21st Century Breakdown changed my life. But as Billie Joe will say East Bay punk saved him, I can say the same about that record. As a teenager, I lived by Gloria’s ideals: striving to claw my way out of a stagnant existence and find a home in all my scars and ammunition. Feeling that way inspired me to carry on when I felt there was no hope left. Now, walking around what might have been one of the most desolate streets in Rodeo; I was living in the songs that inspired me so. Like loving a movie all your life and finally visiting the set.

‘Aren’t you glad we came up here?’ Annabelle asked, and I was. I didn’t feel creepy anymore.

‘We came from such a highly polluted area in Rodeo, California. It’s a refinery town and we ended up getting sent home from school because kids were having headaches and nobody could understand why, when of course, 200 yards away from the elementary school I went to was the biggest refinery in America.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

As we walked up the beaten road to Lone Tree Point, I had ‘Outlaws‘ playing in my head, too. Because if there’s one Green Day song, not from 21st Century Breakdown, that personifies what growing up here must have been like, to me, it’s ‘Outlaws.’

I found a knife by the railroad tracks.
You took a train and you can’t go back.
Forever now you’ll roam.

We sat for a while on a picnic bench at Lone Tree Point, talking and watching the sun go down. Two men threaded their way over the train tracks to a caravan by a dilapidated pier.

Christie Road was still on our to-see-today list, so we marked this as another spot we’d have to return to with a picnic (who has a picnic near a refinery?). We took a slow walk back, taking it all in and detouring onto a bridge to take photos.

On our way in, we saw a Rodeo sign that Billie Joe took a selfie with. Assuming Annabelle remembered we wanted to stop there, and even if she didn’t we’d leave the same way, we didn’t mention it again. We were back out on the 80 when my mum and I looked at each other.

‘I think we’ve come a different way.’
Annabelle glanced at me. ‘Ohhhh, the sign. Uh, we’re long past that…’
We turned in Hercules.
‘Which side was it again?’
It wasn’t exactly something we could Google. We continued, hoping for the best, until my mum grabbed my arm.
‘THERE! That’s it!’
‘Where do I park? Where the hell did he park?!’
My mum pointed. ‘There’s a bus stop, look. Park there. We’ll only be a few minutes…’
‘That’s illegal, Joy,’ Annabelle replied, but parked there anyway.

We were wading through the grass when a horn screeched behind us.

‘It’s a fucking bus!’

The bus driver stepped out, laughing, and asked what we were doing. We said we were Green Day fans doing our history tour. He replied that he loved Green Day and knew Billie Joe’s brothers, who lived locally. We had a short conversation about England, then he went on his merry way. Annabelle, now parked legally, was judging when was a good time to charge back over the highway.

By the time my mum and Annabelle had been to Starbucks to recover, the sun had set and we decided Christie Road would have to wait. Thanks, Rodeo sign.

We’d also forgotten John Swett High School – the first one Billie Joe and Mike attended – Tight Wad Hill, and Foxboro. It seemed a shame to have little things outstanding up there, so we went back.

Foxboro and Crockett

Foxboro is a housing development five minutes down the 80 from Rodeo. Billie Joe and Mike used to sneak into the hot tubs dotted around the village. It was a spot to drink and make out late at night. So, perhaps obviously, it gave the Foxboro Hot Tubs their name. We didn’t wander in to see if we could find any hot tubs. However, we did go and say hi to our favourite sign, since it was a two minute walk away.

‘The Foxboro Hot Tubs were a place we used to sneak booze and chicks into late at night. But most of the time it was just “dude soup.”’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2008

Crockett is the other side of Rodeo, after the 80 threads through hills and the refinery. We stepped out of the car at John Swett. The first thing we saw was the board that announced Green Day’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

‘The fear was always there, even when we were doing American Idiot. I’d get this voice in my head: “Who do you think you are? Why did you write a song like Holiday, you high school dropout?” I think the working-class part of me comes out. Sometimes the people who have the loudest mouths are upper-class, upper-middle-class. The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2013

Across the street from John Swett, peeking through trees, is Carquinez Middle School – where Billie Joe and Mike met. It’s an orange-and-pink-painted building in a dip, before the ground rises back up as a green hill.

‘Our school district went bankrupt, so they closed down the junior high and combined two elementary schools. So [Mike] went to one elementary and I went to the other. We used to have to take the bus out there. First day of elementary school, I think in fifth grade, I was like the class clown – but Mike was like the class clown, so it was kind of like these dueling banjos that were going to go back and forth. What you get is Deliverance. Mike is my musical soulmate.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong in his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech, 2015

This was something else alien to us: suburban American schools. Everything, even this, was on a scale so much larger than England. It was fascinating. At first glance, the warm brick buildings surrounded by trees were just pretty. All we’d seen of quiet, hilly Crockett, overlooked by the Carquinez Bridge, was pretty. It was difficult to imagine it feeling like the end of the world, but the more we walked around, the clearer it was that the silence and empty sidewalks could feel suffocating.

‘I’m not royalty. I’m the king of nothing. I’m in the same high school rock ’n’ roll band I’ve been in since I was 16.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2016

Down a hill dotted with portaloos is an urban scramble of metal and chimneys. It looks like part of the oil refinery, but it’s actually a huge sugar factory. This is where the phrase ‘sugar city urchin’ in ‘Tight Wad Hill’ comes from – and, of course, ‘my Sugartown’ in ‘Nightlife.’ The latter references Crockett since Sugar City Tattoo, where Lady Cobra worked, is here.

Tight Wad Hill itself was a spot where junkies and cheapskates hung around to watch school games for free. It overlooked the John Swett sports field. The area has changed since the song was written, including the field itself, so the original Tight Wad Hill isn’t the same.

The John Swett sports field. School was out. Otherwise it would’ve been weird to take all these photos.

That was all our Rodeo-Crockett references ticked off. We thought we’d better see the bridge and a bit more of the town before we took off – part of the magic was just experiencing these places, after all. We wandered up the hill and through quaint streets.

The WestCAT bus that Billie Joe and Mike used to take to school

Toot’s Tavern, a street-corner pub adorned with an American flag and advertising live music, wasn’t on our list. I’ll admit I didn’t even realise its relevance until Annabelle pointed it out – it’s where the Foxboro Hot Tubs played their second show. We passed it, so why not?

The Al Zampa Memorial Bridge in Crockett

Finally, we walked a bit of the way across the bridge as the sun set… and then we decided it was too late to go to Christie Road again.

These trips to the ‘end of the world’ might have been the dullest part of our trip to anyone else. For us, though, coming from an overcrowded little island where even the most isolated places can’t compare to American suburbia – this was our favourite part. I learned so much about Green Day and their inspiration by experiencing it myself. I kept thinking that the next time I sang along to songs like ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ at a live show, I wasn’t even sure how I was going to feel – and now I know that song has become one of the highlights of every show.

We spent our last day at the annual Block Party. The line-up included Dead Sound, Destroy Boys, Same Girls, Prima Donna, Anastazi and Arrica Rose. Stalls representing local businesses filled the street. We unexpectedly met our new friend Evangelina, who we’d met a few days ago at the San Francisco Longshot show.

Finally, we attempted the photobooth in 1-2-3-4 GO! Records. We ended up with some photos of my mum’s cheek, the top of Evangelina’s head and my left boob. Fear not though, because Evangelina recognised the bathroom wall from a Longshot selfie (the one used to announce their show there, no less), so we got another to add to the Rodeo sign.

I’d say eating mac & cheese and watching local bands (well, Prima Donna, aren’t quite so local) was a pretty good way to end our trip.

So, the next morning, it was time to pack our bags and head back out over 80 to the airport. I’d never wanted to stay so much. My head was spinning from everything I’d taken in over the last week and a half. Still, we were missing some crucial bits and pieces… so we’d just have to go back.

I knew this trip would be special. I could never have imagined quite how deeply it would immerse me in music I thought I already understood so well. In finding the roots of the three people and art that inspired me and gave me hope when there was none – I found another part of myself. People used to ask me why I loved Green Day. That’s why. Because they embody a culture, one that could have been forgotten in one tiny club in Berkeley, so much it reached this lonely kid looking for a purpose in England. I know I was one of many.

Welcome (Back) to Paradise

In late 2019, we found ourselves on a last-minute flight to San Francisco. We would be meeting friends from Sheffield and France for a New Year’s Eve Longshot show – and completing our tour.

When we crashed that night, it all felt too surreal. The next day, sitting in Peet’s Coffee on Telegraph Avenue, the reek of coffee failed to wake me up. I was dreaming. I had to be.

Stuart & the Ave.

We walked on, almost striding straight past Stuart Street. My mum stopped us. This was it – the ‘corner of Stuart and the Avenue’ that Billie Joe wrote of in the song named after this intersection. It angrily remembers his breakup with his ‘first love’ Amanda – ‘Ripping up my transfer and a photograph of you / You’re a blur of my dead past and rotting existence / As I stand laughing on the corner of insignificance.’

‘Play the song,’ Annabelle said, so I did. We stood on that ‘corner of insignificance’ reflecting on the words. ‘Seasons change as well as minds and I’m a two faced clown / You’re mommy’s little nightmare driving daddy’s car around / I’m beat down and half-brain dead, the long lost king of fools / I may be dumb but I’m not stupid enough to stay with you.’ Then we retraced what might or might not have been their footsteps to the Ashby house, where they met and lived.

‘[Basket Case] still reminds me so much of the Ashby house. That’s the house we lived in, in Berkeley and our first video, Longview, was filmed there. We’d be cranking that song out in there, all of us playing in this one tiny room and our neighbours getting pissed because we’d play it five times in a row.’ — Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

In a nearby CVS I bought a giant plush taco. It was too big to fit in my bag. Now I had to carry a giant taco all over Berkeley with me. After lunch at Berkeley Bowl, I finally got a good photo of an Adeline Street sign. Adeline Records, the now-closed label and clothing line co-owned by Billie Joe, was named after this major Oakland street – and now it also appears in ‘Goodnight Adeline.’

People kept complimenting my leggings, but didn’t mention the giant taco. At this point, it should’ve sank in that I was in Oakland.

We passed Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe on our way to Target for supplies. Then I went to destroy Annabelle’s shower with my pink hair dye, because my hasty job looked terrible.

The next day, we awoke to pouring rain. It stopped long enough for us to attempt a trip to Lake Merritt. Mission abort! We got soaked and hid in Starbucks. When it stopped again, we wandered up to KP Asian Market. It has nothing to do with Green Day, but it was there. By the time we’d bought some $2 seaweed, it was about time for us to meet fellow English fans Michelle and Sarah (and Sarah’s husband Jay) at Rudy’s. We chatted about Green Day and the upcoming show. This was our first time actually eating at the Emeryville Rudy’s. I ordered sweet potato fries. They were delicious.

The Ruby Room and Golden Bull

We moved on to the Ruby Room, where the Reverend Strychnine Twitch (AKA Billie) sang about ‘dirty floors and sticky tables.’

I never got around to ordering a drink, but Michelle said the Coke tasted rancid. A good choice to illustrate the ‘hot Friday night’ of a desperate drunk.

Finally, we went to have a look at the stage we’d soon be seeing The Longshot on. It was tiny!

I wrote a separate recap of the show, so I’ll just share one of my favourite photos here – and a photo of fans outside the Golden Bull, of course, since it was once co-owned by Billie Joe.

Fans from around the world outside the Golden Bull

At the show we met up with Claudia from France, whom we’d met previously in Santa Ana and Seville. The three of us went for lunch at Homeroom on New Year’s Day. Across the road at Subrosa Coffee, we ran into fans from Arizona and Texas. We chatted until the sun set over the toilet shop and it was too late for Claudia to pick up some bags from another fan in San Francisco (fortunately, he was happy to meet her the next day).

The Berkeley Rep Theatre

On January 2nd, we took a relaxed walk to the Berkeley Rep with Annabelle. The American Idiot musical was developed and opened at its Roda Theatre. Banners still boasted a photo of John Gallagher Jr. as Johnny. Across the road, a sidewalk plaque celebrated ‘Knowledge’ by Operation Ivy – which is probably Green Day’s best-known cover, too.

‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what I love about it. When people see it, it’s going to be my wildest dream.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2009

At the show, Claudia passed a rat plush to Billie, since it was the Year of the Rat. Then she lost it. A homeless man with blankets walked by. My mum squinted at his bag.

‘That man has a rat plush.’
I turned. ‘It’s Claudia’s rat!’

So anyway, the rat is enjoying a new life in Berkeley.

The Ivy Room

We got the bus to the Ivy Room in Albany. The Coverups, a ‘cover band that doesn’t take requests’ – including Billie Joe, Mike, Jason White, Pinhead Gunpowder bassist Bill Schneider and audio engineer Chris Dugan – played their ever first show there.

Then we got back on the bus for a second attempt at Lake Merritt. Transferring on Telegraph Avenue, we passed The Uptown Nightclub, the last of four places Green Day played 21st Century Breakdown in full.

The Uptown

This time we made it to ‘take a walk around the lake.’ The ‘garden in the park there’ was shut again though.

The sun began to set while we listened to ‘Mother Mary’ on a picnic bench. We walked on to get ‘lost in the shadows’ as the Oakland skyline glittered in the serene water. This walk was significantly less weird than the last one. I don’t think Annabelle even mentioned getting shot.

Christie Road

Claudia picked us up in a rental car the next day. Blasting Longshot, we headed up the I-80 to Christie Road. Then I switched my camera on to find the SD card was corrupted. I’d forgotten my spares. That could have been one of my biggest mistakes, but Claudia had the patience of a saint and drove us all the way back and then back again to Christie Road.

Despite the nearby highway and refinery, the air was refreshingly cool and clear. In every direction rolling hills, dotted with trees and grazing cows, touched the blue sky. Old train cars sat on an unused line. At the entrance to the road was a farm, where a confused man squinted at us.

Christie was once a station but it disappeared in the 1920s. One line is still used. As well as a Green Day fan site, it’s a BNSF railway fan site. I wished I could’ve shared it with my grandpa who was a train driver and railway enthusiast. The wagon labels he gave us to sell helped fund our adventures. He would shake his head, then pull me aside with a wink and tell me to have a good time. I hope he enjoyed Christie Road from paradise or wherever he is now.

We tentatively stepped up to the tracks. The iconic photos of Green Day on train tracks weren’t taken at Christie Road, but we still had to re-enact!

We wandered along the tracks, laughing hysterically at a certain musician for squeezing my arse on New Year’s Eve and a secret agent joke I won’t repeat. Or was it a joke? Only the residents of Christie Road know the truth. Dun-dun-DUUUN… ‘Espionage‘ plays!

Climbing down at a crossing, we walked back to the car. The confused farmer peered through trees to take photos of us. I don’t know if he thought we were after his cattle or just wanted to document the weirdos.

‘Take me to that place that I call home / Take away the strains of being lonely / Take me to the tracks at Christie Road.’ – Green Day, ‘Christie Road‘

As we listened to ‘Christie Road,’ Claudia drove us all the way down, past the paved road onto dirt tracks as the car rumbled and lurched over bumps. She’d only just passed her driving test in France, making it especially impressive! We got out at Wyvern Farm, where the sign actually said ‘Christie Road.’

Here, away from the highway, only our footsteps broke absolute silence. Afternoon sunlight glowed on the green hills. It was easy to see why this was such a beloved refuge for the band; for anyone thinking ‘gotta get away or my brains will explode.’ The clear air, the silence, the presence of only grazing animals – it was reassuring.

‘If there’s one thing that I need / That makes me feel complete / So I go to Christie Road / It’s home.’ – Green Day, ‘Christie Road‘

Rodeo (again)

Back on the highway – after narrowly avoiding knocking over a ladder – we passed the Rodeo San Francisco Refinery, the same one that’s on the cover of Dookie and referred to in ’21st Century Breakdown.’

The towers of the Phillips 66 Refinery that are on the cover of Dookie

We reached Rodeo, where Billie Joe grew up and Mike lived for a while in the Armstrong home. Parking on a quiet suburban street where a woman smiled as if she was used to Green Day fans, we showed Claudia the Rodeo sign where Billie took a selfie.

‘”Longview” was just living in the suburbs in a sort of shit town where you can’t even pull in a good radio station. I was living in Rodeo, California, about 20 minutes outside of Oakland. There was nothing to do there and it was a really boring place.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

Claudia drove us around Rodeo. I was struck, once again, by how much it’s the perfect picture of American suburbia. We’d never have known one of the shops was, as Billie Joe put it, ‘kind of a speed hangout.’ It was that perfect picture that inspired not only ‘Longview’ and the song ‘Jesus of Suburbia,’ but his entire character; bored, angry and apathetic, with dreams of something bigger.

‘The first two lines of [Jesus of Suburbia] are the most haunting lines that have ever affected me.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

Rod’s Hickory Pit and Going to Pas(s)alacqua

Next stop was a Starbucks in Vallejo. This modern, unassuming café was once Rod’s Hickory Pit, where Sweet Children played their first ever show. Billie Joe’s mum, who worked there to support her six kids, convinced her boss to let them play. He and Mike were just 15. The audience of 30 enjoyed the show enough to invite them back.

We hadn’t planned anything beyond Christie Road, but I knew Benicia was this side of the bridge. So, playing ‘Going to Pasalacqua,’ we drove the way early Green Day might, or might not have driven as Billie Joe wrote the lyrics. Its namesake, Passalacqua Funeral Chapel (39/Smooth spelled it wrong, or removed the ‘ass’), was a burst of light amidst suburban streets where porches faded to pitch black.

It was cold now. We crept around the back, feeling slightly disrespectful since we weren’t dead yet. There was an empty parking lot. We took a few more photos – it’s not every day you visit a random funeral chapel in a town no-one’s heard of, after all – then got back in the car. We went to Pas(s)alacqua! Whatever that means, since Billie Joe said in 2010 that the song is about revenge.

‘Here we go again, infatuation touches me just when I thought that it would end / Oh, but then again it seems much more than that, but I’m not sure exactly what you’re thinking.’ – Green Day, Going to Pasalacqua

Just five minutes away were the Camel Barns, now part of the Benicia Historical Museum. Both Sweet Children and Green Day played there, sharing bills with Monsula, Separate Ways, Bumblescrump and Blatz.

The moon shone amidst glittering stars above. Claudia asked if I could take a photo of the stars. There was too much light pollution.

‘But you know where we could get great sky shots? Christie Road!’
‘OK! Let’s do it!’

What do you mean, ‘go back to Concord then?’

It was official – we were going back for the third time in one day. On the way, Claudia asked about Concord and La Jolla, mentioned in The Network’s ‘Spike.’ We had no idea where La Jolla was (it’s near San Diego), but Concord was close by. So we set the GPS and off we went to find something that said ‘Concord’ as we listened to ‘Spike.’ I’d never have come up with that one myself!

The GPS’s guidance ended on a random, pitch black street. Nothing said ‘Concord.’ Sad… then, back on a main road, we spotted Concord Auto Service! That would do. We amused – or scared? – some locals again as mechanics stared at these random people photographing their shop. A funeral chapel was weird, but this was weirder. If we’d known that we would’ve gone to… somewhere else in Concord? What do you mean, ‘go back to Concord then?’

Dude, you don’t even know who you’re talking to. This isn’t even the most random photo in my archive.

Nightfall on Christie Road

The GPS still couldn’t find Christie Road, so it must’ve thought we really love golf going back to Franklin Canyon Golf Course. The highway was eerily empty. We hoped no one would come speeding out as the car rattled down the unlit Christie Road. Surely not? Who’d be driving up and down this road with less than 20 residents at night? We saw headlights. There was indeed someone coming. Claudia pulled over by the tracks, leaving the lights on so they wouldn’t hit us. We worried they still could. The approaching car slowed. Then it stopped. This was Baltimore 2.0, except this murder mobile definitely wasn’t The Longshot. I tentatively wound the window down. A man peered out, his face dimly illuminated by our headlights.

‘Do you… need something?’
‘Uh, no, we’re just going to take some nice night sky pictures.’
‘Oh.’

He drove off. I wondered if he’d seen us driving up and down and shrieking with laughter about bum squeezers earlier. He probably thought we shouldn’t have been driving. We got out, using my backpack and the car as a tripod. My mum and Claudia held flashlights to the tracks so I could focus the lens.

The train tracks at Christie Road, illuminated with an on-camera flash at night.

This time, feeling somehow like criminals – or enemies of the secret agents I wouldn’t mention earlier – we reflected on ‘Outlaws,’ the nostalgic ode to youth described as a ‘sequel’ to ‘Christie Road.’

‘I found a knife by the railroad tracks / You took a train and you can’t go back / Forever now you’ll roam.’ – Green Day, Outlaws

Something moved in the bushes. It might have enriched the road’s serenity in daylight, but now it was just creepy. The cold crept up our sleeves and down our necks. I placed the ‘tripod’ on the bonnet while my helpful assistants lit the tracks again.

The train tracks at Christie Road between wooded hills at night.

‘Was that light on before?’

My mum pointed to an amber light. She was sure that meant a train was coming – and she was probably right, being a driver’s daughter. The car was right by the tracks. There was no sign of headlights, so we kept taking photos.

An amber railway light glowing beside the train tracks between wooded hills at Christie Road at night.

Then we heard the horn. It was too late to move the car. I was sure the train was going to smash it to pieces and that we’d be in the firing line, too. So I did what one of my favourite photographers, Frank Hurley, definitely would’ve done and turned to take photos.

‘See the hills from afar, standing on my beat up car / The sun went down and the night fills the sky / Now I feel like me once again, as the train comes rolling in.’ – Green Day, Christie Road

I didn’t really need to ‘feel like me once again’ after returning to Christie Road for the third time in one day, or visiting a random funeral home and taking photos in a Starbucks, but if there was any doubt about whether I’d been replaced with a secret agent – there was ‘me once again.’ We’d seen a train at Christie Road! The car survived! We survived! With photos! We were even almost standing (or laying injured) on a ‘beat-up car.’

As we drove down the cute, tree-lined road turned horror movie wood, my mum told us about a book she read called Loving Frank. In the last five pages a butler randomly came and killed the family with an axe. Thanks for that. Now we were sure the secret agents were coming.

A dirt road leading through trees at night on Christie Road. — Further down Christie Road at night, or as we fondly named it, ‘the butler bit’

Almost back at the highway, we heard rumbling. Another horn. There was another train coming! This time we weren’t close enough to die. Claudia braked and I leaned out to take photos. They’d have been better with an external flash and finally replacing my kit lens, but hey, we have some photos of the train ‘rolling in.’

Foxboro and Pinole (again)

We set the GPS for Foxboro. Claudia hadn’t seen the Foxboro Hot Tubs’ namesake yet. ‘Sign! Foxboro sign! There it is,’ we all shouted in unison before looking for a place to park. For some reason I only took photos on my phone in 2018, so I was glad to take some more – and at night, when the band actually visited.

Stopping in Pinole on our way back, we showed Claudia Fiat Music. We also checked out The Red Onion. Billie Joe worked there for a while in his teens, but in 2018 we sat on the sign outside and forgot about it. All these things were pieces of a puzzle of inspiration that formed ‘Jesus of Suburbia.’

Then we returned to ‘the centre of the earth in the parking lot, at the 7-Eleven where I was taught.’ A guy coming out saw us taking photos and raised his beers with a whoop. We bought a platypus plush and called them Willow.

The windows and sign of the 7-Eleven in Pinole are illuminated at night. A man in a hoodie is leaving the shop.

San Francisco

Claudia was due to return the car the next day, but there were more adventures to be had, so she extended the rental. We drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.

The Warning cover shoot by Marina Chavez took place in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I knew the bakery on the cover was Blossom Bakery, so I thought it’d be easy to find, but as far as I could tell it no longer existed. We felt a bit lost. Then I spotted a red and white awning that looked familiar. I compared a doorway to another photo from the shoot. The bakery did still exist – just under a different name.

Colourful doorways and awnings in Waverly Place in San Francisco.

Setting the self-timer for 12 seconds, I hesitantly sat my camera on a bin on the other side of the road. People kept walking in front. Then we spotted another tourist and he was kind enough to take a photo for us.

A comparison between the black-and-white cover of Warning by Green Day and three fans outside the same bakery in another black-and-white image.

I recognised the end of the street from another photo. We showed the photo to another kind person we thought was a tourist, but turned out to be a local, who agreed to take one.

Walking back to the car, another alleyway looked familiar.

‘[With Warning] I wanted to start saying things in songs that I could be really proud of – that wasn’t just songs about masturbation. I mean, that’s significant, too…’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2004

Colourful houses passed as we drove up and down hills. It felt like being in both the When I Come Around video and City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2. One day I’ll take a photo of me skidding down streets on a broken plane wing (or pretending to, since the risk assessment might not go to plan).

A comparison of modern photos of the coloured houses of San Francisco with illuminated windows in Green Day's When I Come Around video.

Looking for Hyde Street Studios, Google Maps took us to an unmarked wall. It had to be on Hyde Street, so we wandered down, wondering if we were somehow in the wrong place. Then there it was – a thin, unassuming blue building. We could easily have walked by. So this was where Green Day recorded Insomniac, fuelling up with caffeine between takes. Tré repeatedly ripped the calluses off his hands to perfect ‘Panic Song.’

‘The fact that that album came out, like, a year and a half after Dookie was us trying to cut off the bullshit in its tracks and just keep making music. That’s all we wanted to do, keep making music. Sometimes I feel that Insomniac is the most honest record I ever made at the particular moment that it was written and recorded.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, Kerrang

’I felt at the time that there was a real urgency to what we were doing. There was a real urgency to stake our claim and say, “No, we belong here.” It was really important to us to make sure people knew that we weren’t just a flash in the pan.’ – Mike Dirnt, Kerrang

Following the actual route of the ‘When I Come Around’ video now, we drove on to Misión San Francisco de Asís. The video opens and closes with night shots of its towers. It’s also pretty regardless.

Our last stop of the day was Haight Street. In ‘Misery,’ the character Mr Whirly – a Replacements reference – becomes homeless and sleeps there. We soon spotted a sign that said ‘Haight,’ but now we needed a parking spot. Hopefully Mr Whirly was on foot, because it took several minutes of driving around in circles to find one. Claudia’s parking was impressive, though. Around us, beautifully painted and decorated houses climbed steep hills.

‘Mr. Whirly had a catastrophic incident / He fell into the city by the bay / He liquidated his estate / Now he sleeps upon the Haight / Panhandling misery.’ – Green Day, Misery

The last stop on our list was Highway 1, but it was getting late and we were all tired and hungry. We were also broke and Claudia was kind enough to buy us dinner. ‘Soul of Ms. Teresa’ right there! Driving back across the Bay Bridge was moving on from City Escape to Radical Highway. Don’t worry, that’s still not a Green Day reference.

The facility on East 12th Street

It was strange looking at our almost-completed list the next day. Back in 2009, longingly looking at $1,000+ tickets to the Uptown show we knew we couldn’t buy, it really was hard to imagine ever visiting Oakland. This was still surreal. We decided on the ‘facility on East 12th Street,’ where ‘Jesus is filling out paperwork now’ in ‘Homecoming.’

‘There’s a police station on 12th Street in Oakland. After I got charged with a DUI, I had to do a whole bunch of paperwork there to satisfy my community service requirement.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2005

I love the entire American Idiot album. ‘Letterbomb’ is my favourite track, but the closest to my heart is between ‘Are We the Waiting’ and ‘Homecoming.’ Every time I hear ‘Homecoming,’ it takes me back to Broadway, watching Billie Joe sing ‘you taught me how to live’ and thinking ‘shit, man, you really did.’ I’ll recycle the analogy that seeing the places that shaped those words is like loving a movie all your life and finally visiting the set. Anyway, was a boarded-up police station weirder than a funeral chapel? I don’t know.

‘Jesus is filling out paperwork now / At the facility on East 12th Street / He’s not listening to a word now / He’s in his own world and he’s daydreaming / He’d rather be doing something else now / Like cigarettes and coffee with the underbelly / His life on the line with anxiety now / And she had enough and he’s had plenty.’ – Green Day, Homecoming

On our way back, we spotted a Café Gabriela. It had nothing to do with Green Day and wasn’t even the same spelling, but I still took a photo because we were on a Green Day trip and ‘Gabriella’ is an ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! outtake I’d love to hear. The trilogy is fabulous and you can’t change my mind.

The garden in the park there

We still hadn’t managed to actually get into the ‘garden in the park there,’ so we went back. Success! We made it with 15 minutes to wander around. It was definitely closed when the Rev offered to take Mother Mary.

Completing the puzzle, we went to ‘take a ride on the midnight train…’

…And ‘fall asleep at the station.’ I wasn’t actually paying to get on a train, so at least we couldn’t ‘miss our destination.’

Outside, the lilac sky turned deep orange. The San Francisco and West Oakland skylines glittered in another stunning California sunset.

Since I’d just been paid, we returned to 1-2-3-4 GO! Records to get me a Rock Roll Repeat shirt. Couldn’t resist.

Broken Guitars

We stopped by Broken Guitars to take some photos and ask if they had more shirts yet. I knew I needed the photos for this project and the staff were lovely, but I felt so awkward because like, I have one dusty acoustic guitar buried under a sleeping bag in my bedroom. I might as well have ‘GREEN DAY FAN’ tattooed on my forehead. Anyway, I mentioned that I was making this project and they said it was cool even if they didn’t actually think so.

Art of Ears Studio and meeting Andro

We met Claudia at MacArthur BART Station. Now we were embarking upon a grand public transport adventure! OK, it wasn’t that grand. We got the BART to Hayward and then the 86 bus to Art of Ears Studio. Hopefully there was a return from 86, because it was cold.

1000 Hours, Slappy, 39/Smooth and Kerplunk were recorded and produced by Andy ‘Andro’ Ernst at Art of Ears. Only the latter was actually recorded at the Hayward studio – the others were recorded in a San Francisco studio that’s now closed.

‘$700 is not a lot of money to be making an album with. But that’s what we thought was cool as well. We proved that you didn’t need to have a huge budget, that you didn’t need to waste a lot of time. I think if we had any more money to spend then we were so young and naive that [39/Smooth] might have come out crap.’ – Billie Joe Armstrong, 2001

A man peered out at us from inside. We probably looked like the secret agents we were still laughing about, so we explained we were Green Day fans.

‘I wondered what these punk rockers were doing out here,’ he said, ‘Yeah, that was me.’

My mum congratulated him on a great job. 39/Smooth was still one of her favourite albums. He was kind enough to invite us inside.

Most places, you visit and the only mark left by Green Day is the song playing in your mind. A cut-out of Billie Joe, ‘swearing’ he recorded at Art of Ears, greeted us as we walked in. Andro told us what a fast, one-take vocalist he was. Framed gold discs celebrated 39/Smooth and Kerplunk.

‘When we put out Kerplunk on Lookout!, it was like, “my drumming’s going to be on a CD!” Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m in a band.’ – Tré Cool, 1995

Admiring the CDs on the walls, we chatted for a while about other punk bands Andro produced, including AFI, Good Riddance, The Wynona Riders and Tiger Army to name a few. The studio was actually up for sale now. Andro was finishing up some of his own work before considering a move to Las Vegas, where he said there’s a lively punk club. He expected the studio to become part of the nearby cannabis farm. Well, that explained why we could smell weed despite being on an empty street in the middle of nowhere. He said it was cool we’d come on the bus. Before we parted ways, having talked a while about Europe and transatlantic flights for £43, my mum asked if Andro minded us taking photos with the studio. ‘Take a picture with me,’ he said, so we did.

Walking away, we shared wide grins. Now that was unexpected! We only expected to take photos of a closed door – and we’d have been satisfied with that, but instead we got an even more wonderful memory to treasure. I’ll think about that day whenever I listen to Green Day’s early work.

Back at the bus stop – and back in the cold wind – we debated travelling another two hours to Agnews, the hospital in the ‘Basket Case’ video. That was our original plan. It was already getting dark, though, and this was Claudia’s last day. It’d take us at least five hours. Probably more like six or seven. We hesitated, but decided to just head back. Good choice – I since found out it’s been demolished! I guess one day when we’re in a car we’ll go and see where it was, but I’m not sure I want to make a four-plus hour journey otherwise. We hugged and said goodbye to Claudia on the BART, certain there would be a reason for the secret agents to meet again soon… we did not see COVID coming.

On a mission to Downtown Oakland the next day, we passed a display celebrating 924 Gilman Street in Rasputin Records. Cool. We got off the bus near 14th Street. I’d drawn something a few days ago, but I didn’t think I could afford to have it tattooed. So naturally, we used our signature ‘no money left but’ trick, withdrew our collective balances twice and went to Oakland Ink. Ben, my artist, was fab not just for sorting things so last minute, but offering a discount so I could afford it.

This line was special to me for a few reasons. I adore the Love is for Losers album and ‘Body Bag,’ the song this lyric is from. The past decade was madness – going to Costa Rica to see a band, American Idiot on Broadway, sleeping on streets in the snow, getting onstage in a random city in Illinois… and my ADHD was misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder, so I also spent that decade being ridiculed for ‘madness’ by everyone but those who actually knew me. It’s not going away, so I might as well accept myself as I am. Finally, I did literally keep a ‘diary of madness’ when I got involved with a famous person, wondering if I was going insane and imagining things. The entertainment industry does that. No matter what the future holds, they were all defining points in my life. Oh, and I’d been wanting that ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! heart and cross tattooed.

We wrapped up our day in Rudy’s with some more sweet potato fries. I should have eaten before being tattooed, not after, but my tattoo history includes getting one with a concussion, so…

In our last hour before leaving for the airport, we had a wander through the UC Berkeley Campus. It was even relevant to our tour since ‘Brat’ was inspired by Cal students.

We never got to Highway 1, but I found a photo from when we went to the Rose Bowl show in 2017. Not the Bay Area, but hey, it’s Highway 1!

So it was complete. 13 years since we first dreamed of visiting the Bay Area, 10 years since we were too broke to make it across the Bay from Mountain View – it was done.

I wrote back then: ‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. Looking at all the photos, re-reading this post, I feel like I’m reading about someone else’s tour. Yet it has to be my own, for it’s forever on my skin in my diary of madness – and in the stories I’ll be telling forever of going up and down Christie Road, laughing about bum squeezers and secret agents, of meeting Andro, of taking “a walk around the lake,” random boarded-up police stations, and funeral chapels.’

It makes me wonder why I’m still here, but for some strange reason it’s now feeling like my home and I’m never gonna go.

Planning your own tour? Sorry to repeat myself, but I’d love to hear about it! If you’ve got a few quid to spare, I’d be so incredibly grateful if you’d consider supporting me for £3 / $4 – click here.

This is a combination of three posts published from 2017 – 2020 on my art website, mariagloriaharvey.com.