FUSE TV - Green Day Play Marathon Warm-Up Show in New York

Sometime around the two-hour mark of Green Day’s set at New York's Irving Plaza —after they’d purred through Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama” but before donning feather boas to cover the Isley Brothers' “Shout”—singer Billie Joe Armstrong perched at the lip of the stage and grinned with camaraderie at his small, hysterical crowd. “We are so off script,” he yelled over the roar, “it is f--king amazing right now!” And then, to prove it further, he launched into “When I Come Around,” ad-libbing a rhyme about bassist Mike Dirnt being a dirty whore until they both convulsed in laughter. (The group's publicist confirmed that the band had strayed astoundingly from their pre-orchestrated setlist.)

As our raucous photos from the night prove, little felt predetermined at the punk veterans’ comically modest show on Saturday. The only note of obligation was in their reason for playing the venue: the much-anticipated show marked the launch of their partnership with Nokia Music, the smartphone company’s new streaming service, and hype the group’s upcoming album trilogy ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!,¡Tré!. On the ground floor, rabid Green Day fans ranging from teenagers to late-40s thrashed along to every lyric and breakneck guitar riff while music industry delegates crowded the open bar and schmoozed on the VIP second floor.

Those wise enough to descend to sea level were rewarded with an improbably urgent show that stretched half an hour past the promised two. The 38-song set was heavy with the band's earliest Dookie and Nimrod-era hits, a move that could have felt like deliberate pandering—like a gesture of phony grassroots remembrance in the tiny club—if it weren’t so enthusiastically delivered and so much fun to experience. (Those hoping for a preview of the upcoming trifecta of albums may have left disappointed, though I didn’t see one scowl in the house.) Instead, the room felt thick with happy disbelief; I heard more attendees remark “I’ve never seen them before” than any other show of recent memory, and the evening felt like a lucky inauguration.