Show Notes: frascella: "I remember when Billie Joe hopped off the stage. My first thought was, 'What the hell are you gonna do? This is Trenton, bud, you're in over your head!'"

Rolling Stone: "...The guy from Geffen looked at me: "You sold out City Gardens [in Trenton, New Jersey]?" We were also selling out the Whisky A Go Go [in Los Angeles]. Even the people at Warner Bros. were like, "Holy shit!"..."

Jim Testa: "As a 'thank you', they went back and played City Gardens again and sold it out a second time, though they could have played a much bigger place. That first show, the one before Dookie came out, was the only show they had ever played in New Jersey or New York before they signed to Reprise. Even with all the touring they did, they never came to New Jersey."

Rich O'Brien: "This show was videotaped and eventually wound up on YouTube. Whenever I see it I crack up, because I was working the stage and look like a giant next to Billie Joe Armstrong. I saw a fight break out by the door. I jumped down, and it was two guys with no shirts on, all sweaty. It was like trying to wrestle two greased pigs out the door. The one kid was bald, so the only thing I could grab to throw him out was his ears. I felt people being jostled around, so I looked back, and Billie Joe was standing next to me, trying to intervene to keep the guys from being thrown out. I grabbed him and gently directed him back to the stage."

"A snotty, 22-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong hammers his powder-blue Stratocaster for an hour at City Gardens, Trenton's cinder-blocked hardcore cavern. It's March 18, 1994. Green Day's career-dispatching "Dookie" is barely six weeks old. The gritty, sweat-soaked Calhoun Street venue where Jon Stewart once tended bar is on its last leg, and will close before the new year. ... The budding California trio is already popular enough to play larger, more prestigious halls - they'll rock 'Saturday Night Live' before the year is out, too. But following punk-proper tradition, they loyally return to the Jersey room that marked a milestone for the band."

Opening Band(s): Tilt