Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day closes Providence Park’s first outdoor concert season in 19 years on September 25, 2024.
Liz Hooper
Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong catches his breathe near the front of the stage, his eyes surveying a surging crowd of more than 32,000 fans in Portland’s 98-year-old soccer stadium, Providence Park. “Who knows the words to this song?” asks Armstrong. Behind him, the thumping backbeat of the band’s 2009 hit, “Know Your Enemy” reverberates over the crowd.
Everybody knows the words to this song.
In a swarm of hands, Armstrong’s eyes land on Ema Beckley, a 25-year-old fan clad in plaid shorts and a black tee shirt who arrived at the stadium hours before most of the crowd to grab a spot in the front row. Hours earlier, Beckley battled the rain to save her spot while catching openers The Linda Lindas, Rancid and The Smashing Pumpkins. Now, the Green Day mega-fan’s perseverance is being rewarded by a stage call from Armstrong.
She scrambles on stage, face-to-face with the punk rock icon. Almost immediately, Armstrong, drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt relentlessly riff back into the song.
Right on cue—and with a startling display of stage presence for an average fan—Beckley nails every line. Working the stage from front to back, left to right, Beckley provokes the crowd to near madness. By the time the final refrains of “Know Your Enemy” fade into the Oregon night, Beckley is jumping off Green Day’s monitor in precise timing to an explosion of pyrotechnics.
In seconds, a gobsmacked Armstrong discovers why. Beckley points to her leg, revealing a surprise: a tattooed version of Armstrong standing by the real-life version’s side.
“This girl is a f——g rock star!” Armstrong shouted. “She just told me she’s in a band!”
Los Mocos guitarist Ema Beckley watches Rancid perform in the rain at Providence Park in advance of Green Day on September 25, 2024.
Joe Sills
Beckley, a guitarist for Albuquerque-based punk band Los Mocos, is one of thousands of fans who traveled from across North America to the show. “That was the best moment of the entire tour,” Armstrong exclaims. “Swear to god.”
As the oldest soccer stadium in America approaches its 100th birthday, people like Beckley represent the vanguard of what park officials hope will become a renewed annual migration—a pilgrimage to more massive, outdoor concerts in downtown Portland that create the same kind of memories the New Mexican musician conjured for thousands tonight.
This year, Providence Park welcomed rock n’ roll back after a 19-year hiatus. In July, Seattle’s Foo Fighters kicked down the doors Def Leppard left ajar nearly 20 years ago. At the end of September, Oakland-area punk icons Green Day closed down the short but successful two-show season that park officials hope to expand next year.
“Both concerts were at capacity,” says Providence Park CEO Heather Davis. “We are thrilled with how this year worked out. We couldn’t have asked for better acts. I mean, we saw some stories where people traveled down from Canada for Green Day. Obviously, around here the Foo Fighters are iconic.”
PORTLAND, OR – NOVEMBER 25: A tifo is displayed before the match between the Portland Timbers and the Sporting Kansas City at Providence Park on November 25, 2018 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
Getty Images
According to Davis, the stadium is only capable of hosting a handful of concerts each year due to heavy usage by the hometown Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns soccer clubs. Two shows in 2024 might turn into three or four in 2025. Conversion from soccer to modern music requires a concerted, seven to nine day “ballet” of moving parts running into and out of the stadium’s single loading area.
At Providence Park, there are no parking lots large enough for semi-trucks. 18-wheelers and tour buses settle in between traffic barriers. Many fans arrive via the city’s TriMet commuter rail or walk to the stadium from blocks away.
The unique setup gives events at the park a timeless feel. Greenery drapes the weathered concrete entryway at SW 18th Ave. and Morrison Street. The “nosebleeds” at Providence Park are old school wooden bleachers harkening back to a bygone era. Modern, premium suites offer amenities found at similar professional sports venues across the country. And with a 100,000-square-foot floor placed over the pitch, 7,000 floor seats create a festival-like atmosphere at ground level.
Adding a college basketball arena worth of music fans on top of what would be a sold out soccer crowd is a difficult, delicate act.
The payoff, however, is dramatic.
Green Day fan Luke Wolkenhauer snaps a photo at Providence Park, Portland.
Joe Sills
It’s the kind of atmosphere that longtime concert photographer and lifelong Green Day fan Luke Wolkenhauer finds irresistible. Wolkenhauer has traveled across the globe to follow Green Day for more than 30 years. “Tonight is number 44 for me,” he shouts over a steel crowd barrier from the front row.
Wolkenhaur says he’s been a fan since 1991, when an early cassette copy of the band’s second studio album, “Kerplunk!” found its way from a Santa Cruz skate spot to his Bay Area bedroom.
Tonight, Wolkenhauer has given up concert photography—where photographers are usually required to leave after just three songs—to soak in the entire show from the front row with a smartphone camera. It’s a tradeoff he’s made dozens of times now. And the result, he says, has been the opportunity to experience a true mosaic of the band over the years; the opportunity to watch Green Day evolve from a three-piece punk band into a modern musical movement with their own political activism campaigns (Green Day is registering people to vote outside of the venue) and Broadway rock opera (2010’s American Idiot ran in New York City and Berkeley, California).
“This soccer stadium is really awesome,” Wolkenhauer says. “It’s great to be able to see them play in an outdoor arena, where you get to have the experience of getting rained on all night to see your favorite band. The sound of 20,000 people singing the same song is my religion.”
Green Day kicks off their set in Providence Park on September 25, 2024 in Portland, Oregon.
Joe Sills
Tonight represents a bookend to rock revival at Providence Park, but the stadium has a storied history of producing memorable outdoor shows. In 1957, at the start of a long distant September, a young Elvis Presley took the stage here for what was the park’s first concert. That show planted the seeds of a sonic tradition that blossomed into packed performances by The Beach Boys in 1984, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty in 1986, David Bowie in 1987, Johnny Cash in 1992 and Van Halen in 1995.
Outdoor concerts ebbed and flowed at Providence Park until 2005, when around 9,100 fans turned out for the fading echoes of Def Leppard’s Rock of Ages Tour. And then, the stage went silent.
For the next 19 years, soccer continued to thrive at Providence Park. The Timbers won a MLS Cup championship in 2025. The Thorns took home a trio of NWSL Championships in 2013, 2017 and 2022, even setting an all-time NWSL attendance record (25,218) in 2019. But concerts, for the most part, were on the back burner.
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day strikes a chord on “Blue,” the Fender Stratocaster he received for his 11th birthday.
Liz Hooper
Davis says the movement to put music back on center stage in Portland’s signature outdoor venue began in earnest in 2019, after a privately-funded renovation added 4,100-seat seats to Providence Park. Renovations raised the capacity of the venue to more than 25,000 for soccer games and 32,000 for concerts—a figure high enough to draw in the kind of stadium tours usually reserved for baseball and football stadiums.
Pandemic delays pushed logistics into 2022 and 2023 before Providence Park’s turnstiles officially reopened for concertgoers this year.
“There’s so much history here that makes it unique,” adds Davis. “People remember coming to Timbers matches in the NASL days. They remember coming to Portland Beavers baseball games and football games. Everyone who grew up here or lives in Portland has some connection to this venue, which makes it a special place to do anything in.”
Knowingly or not, Armstrong’s wardrobe tonight mirrors the rock n’ roll forerunners who stood in his place on this field. Black slacks. A black and red button up top. No wardrobe changes. “It’s almost over,” Armstrong says, somberly trading his electric axe for an acoustic model. “September, I mean,” launching into the opening melody of “When September Ends.”
Green Day is here to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their six-time platinum album “American Idiot” and the 30th anniversary of the 20-time platinum “Dookie.” They are playing both albums in their entirety, adding bonus hits in between.
Punk rock fans, undeterred by rain, pack the field of Portland’s Providence Park for Green Day’s Saviors Tour on September 25, 2024.
Liz Hooper
Tonight in Portland, it’s just the band, the open air and the fans. Drizzled by rain and decked out in the draping soccer banners, this 98-year-old stadium feels intimate tonight. The now 52-year-old Armstrong works the crowd softly, rambunctiously and triumphantly, appearing to have lost little to his step since Wolkenbauer first saw the band 30 years ago.
Nearly three hours into the set, a volley of confetti cannons spray out over the crowd. They signal the end of tonight’s show but the return of stadium tours to downtown Portland.
Days later, back in New Mexico, Beckley reflects on her trip to Oregon. “The feeling was indescribable,”she says. “This was a dream I’ve had since I was 10 years old, so when it finally happened 15 years later, I couldn’t believe it. Billie Joe is the person responsible for me picking up a guitar and pursuing music. I owe so much to Green Day. I can’t even express what they mean to me.
“I didn’t know about the pryo,” she adds. “Billie Joe told me to jump and I just did as I was told! It was the biggest and most special moment of my life.”