Show Notes: MarQ Manner: "Pansy Division was a gay punk rock band that opened for Green Day at The Ranch Bowl in the early 1990's. They asked me and my friend to walk them to their van as they loaded equipment. Not sure what I would have been able to do, but they were pretty scared about playing the Midwest at the time."

Kevin C.: "A week after I left Omaha a new band called Green Day played the Ranch Bowl. I read it got torn down. That's a shame because I don't think there was another place like it.
Armstrong also reminisced about passing through Omaha during the band's early days, on a tour to support its 1994 album, Dookie. 'We played at this bowling alley. Was that the Ranch Bowl?' he said to cheers, recalling the former bowling alley and rock club on South 72nd Street. 'Where else can you play at a kick-ass rock club and work on your spare in the meantime?'"

rockcandy.omaha.com: "Kiel also caught Green Day a few years later. The punk band's major-label debut, Dookie, was doing really well, but in Omaha they played the Ranch Bowl.
While opening act Pansy Division played, 'I was standing about halfway back from the stage, outside of the cluster part of the crowd, watching. Looked to my right and remember noticing a really short guy with a few facial piercings and green hair standing right next to me watching the show. We both stood there and watched, enjoying the show.' 'It wasn't until Green Day took the stage that I realized the person with whom I had watched the Pansy Division set was indeed Green Day's drummer Tré Cool. It was so hot with that many people in the place, the windows were fogging over and singer Billie Joe Armstrong made some comment about that.'"

John Warsocki remembers the time Green Day played the Ranch Bowl because drummer Tre Cool tried to bum a smoke off of him. But Warsocki was only 15. He didn’t smoke and none of his friends did either. While they watched opening band Pansy Division, Cool also wondered aloud how the audience would be for their set. He shouldn’t have been worried. “The place went nuts when they played ‘Longview,’” Warsocki recalled. Green Day went nuts, too: “They were full of energy just bouncing around the stage.” Sean Purcell had a similar experience. Only a teenager, he and a friend didn’t have tickets but thought they may be able to sneak in. It turns out they didn’t need to. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong saw them and told security, “They’re with me.” Purcell and his pal watched from the side of the stage. Aaron Baxter was there, too, and the show set the bar for what he expects at shows now. “Billie Joe (was) jumping around, having fun playing music and being an entertainer to the crowd. I remember him commenting on a baseball game playing on the TV over the door and doing the whole, ‘Hey, batter batter,’ routine,” he said. The band remembers the show, too. When Green Day played Omaha in 2009, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong recalled the venue while talking to the audience. “We played at this bowling alley. Was that the Ranch Bowl?” he said. “Where else can you play at a kick-ass rock club and work on your spare in the meantime?”

Opening Band(s): Pansy Division