Details
Location:
House in Garberville, CA
Date:
November 16, 1988
Notes:
- Incomplete setlist
- John Goar: "It was a gig way up a couple of counties north, at somebody's house. It was a free show type of thing. It would have been a strange thing for me to go to, I wouldn't have known anybody there. It was 50 miles away and my wife was pregnant with our first child at the time, so I didn't go. I kick myself today for that."
- Mike Dirnt: "Lawrence Livermore, the guy who owns Lookout, was also impressed by the fact that we came to play at his house. He lives about 300 miles north of San Francisco. The last 10 miles of which are on a dirt logging road. We played, powered by a portable generator, in the rain for about six people. It was so cold that Bill almost had to stop playing because his hands were numb. Lawrence paid us with a six pack of beer and we didn't get home until five in the morning. I think that experience convinced Lawrence that we were worth the money."
- Larry Livermore: "They never 'auditioned' for me. That is a story that was more or less made up by Ben Weasel when he wrote the band bio for Dookie. The real story is that they came up to play a show with my band, the Lookouts. This was in 1988, when Tré was still in the Lookouts, and John Kiffmeyer aka Al Sobrante was drumming for Green Day (then called Sweet Children). It wasn't actually a real 'show', more of a party for a bunch of kids that went to high school with Tré. But because the weather was bad, and there was some snow on the roads up in the mountains where the party was supposed to be, almost none of the kids showed up. Even the kid whose house it was didn't show up, so the other kids ended up breaking into the house and setting up a generator, because there wasn't any other electricity. So Sweet Children/Green Day ended up playing for literally five kids, and yet they played as if they were the Beatles at Shea Stadium. I mean they played their hearts out, and I was thinking, 'I don't care whether anyone buys it or not, I'm putting out a record by this band.' As for what songs they played, I couldn't totally remember, except that they played most or all of the songs from 1,000 Hours and some of the songs that ended up on 39/Smooth. ...I watched from the back, only half paying attention at first. But before they'd finished even one song, I was absolutely riveted. I'd seen this level of performance before, but only in giant, packed arenas or stadiums, delivered by bands at the peak of their careers. 16-year-old Billie Joe exuded the casual self-confidence of a superstar, offset slightly but not entirely by a shy, self-effacing humility. Stopping every few songs to thank his minuscule audience, he sang and played as though he'd been doing this all his life - which, I would learn, wasn't far from the truth. Walking up to me afterward, he offhandedly asked, 'What did you think?' 'I want to make a record with you guys,' was all I could say. They were barely getting started - this might have been their third or fourth show ever - but I'd seen and heard all I needed to. They were like a modern, updated, punk rock version of the Beatles. They could seriously be that big, I caught myself thinking. Crazy talk? Of course. Yet at that moment it made perfect, undeniable sense. The Lookouts never played that night; by the time Sweet Children finished, it was midnight and our 'audience', worried they'd get in trouble with their parents, said goodbye and headed home. On the long drive back to Spy Rock, twisting the radio dial in search of an audible signal and thankful for my aging truck's slightly more than adequate heater, I had barely an inkling of how the night's events were about to change my life forever."
Setlist
1. 1,000 Hours
2. Dry Ice
3. Only of You
4. The One I Want
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