Details
Location:
Lewis' in Norfolk, VA
Date:
January 21, 1993
Other Acts:
White Vision Hasta
Notes:
- Recordings from this show can be [url=http://www.greendaycommunity.org/topic/92586-19930121-lewiss-norfolk-virginia-usa/]here[/url]
- Samantha Vile: "I slept on the same pullout couch as Tre one night in VA in '93 and he wanted to fall asleep to Jawbreaker (the Bivouac CD). He was wearing the green scrubs. Very strange guy. I think fame has made him more normal, oddly enough?"
- mitch26: "No, while I shot 99% of the videos that I have posted I did not shoot this particular show, it was given to me by someone in the band that opened up for them. I have tried to find the original taper, in fact you can see others in the audience filming also. Despite having a music store in the area and asking around no other footage has ever shown up from this show. ...When Green Day was a couple hours late the group [White Vision Hasta] ran out of material and played Green Day covers..."
- Sam McDonald: "Roll back the clock 12 years, though, and they were a promising trio of snotty young punks grinding through the underground circuit of grungy basements and sweaty dive bars.
A bootleg videotape circulating among area music heads shows exactly what those days were like. Blurry, color-distorted images recorded with a hand-held camera show guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tres Cool rocking on stage at a packed club called Lewis', a long-gone Norfolk bar that was once a music hotspot.
The date that flashes across the bottom of the screen is Jan. 21, 1993. 'We're hella-late - we apologize,' Armstrong tells the crowd before launching into the set's first song, a spunky version of '2000 Light Years Away.' Bob Lax, a Hampton musician, was there that night. 'They were about to break real big. It was around the time the 'Kerplunk' album came out,' Lax remembered. 'That one sent them over the top. Their style hadn't changed any, but their style finally caught on.' Lax went to the show with members of his own Hampton-based punk band, Jermflux. The video clearly shows two of Lax's bandmates standing at the lip of the stage, the vanguard of a surging, steaming mass of rock fans. Jermflux toured nationally, playing many of the same clubs as Green Day. While the two groups played two very different brands of punk, they shared a do-it-yourself ethic and rebellious underground spirit.' 'We had been reading a lot of (the magazine) Maximum Rock and Roll and getting into that Bay Area punk stuff,' Lax explained. 'But our music was much more aggressive. It was the flipside, the other side of the coin.' The Lewis' concert probably represents the last time the two groups would be on something close to equal footing. Green Day went on to release Dookie, the band's commercial breakthrough album on Warner Bros. Jermflux remained defiantly underground, built a solid reputation in punk circles, and eventually broke up. Lax now plays in the local hardcore band Sprawl. Jermflux's drummer moved to Florida. Another member, Sean Conkling, relocated to Arizona where he is currently teaching audio recording techniques and building his own studio. Conkling remembers helping Green Day unload their equipment at Lewis' show. Armstrong thanked the band and told the crowd to check out the Jermflux show later that week. It was no big deal. 'In the underground, when a band like Green Day tours, they are playing shows at houses and small clubs, living in a van. Helping other bands is a simply a way of life,' Conkling said in an e-mail. 'When they did make it big, Jermflux was playing Green Day's home club of 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, Calif. On the back wall was spray paint saying 'GREEN DAY MUST DIE.' When bands like that make it big, the original fans get offended and hurt and take it personally.' Mitch Kirsner, owner of the music and novelty shop Fantasy in Newport News, remembers selling hundreds of copies of the Kerplunk album. But that changed after Green Day switched to a major label. 'We've heard a little buzz about Friday's show,' Kirsner said. 'But it's more of a mall punk thing now.'"
Setlist
1. 2,000 Light Years Away
2. Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?
3. Welcome To Paradise
4. At The Library
5. Don't Leave Me
6. Christie Road
7. One Of My Lies
8. Longview
9. Going To Pasalacqua
10. Paper Lanterns
11. Dominated Love Slave
Previous Show
