As Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day ripped through the three chords of the Ramones’ “Rockaway Beach” on Wednesday night, the crowd at Cornerstone in Berkeley hoisted high school sophomore Violet Lim overhead as she crowd-surfed towards the stage.
Lim, who’d been camped out in the front row since doors opened, was one of the lucky 500 attendees to claim a ticket to see the Coverups, the not-so-secret cover band side project of Bay Area punk legends Green Day. She said that Armstrong is her idol, noting that she had her guitar painted by Tony Schroom, the same Vallejo artisan who gives Armstrong’s guitars their shiny finishes. Her band had actually also played on the same Cornerstone stage, three times.
“It’s unbelievable, but it’s not unbelievable,” she said, describing the show and how Armstrong still maintains strong ties to the local community despite his fame.
Another pair of teenage brothers who were early arrivals wondered aloud whether the band would be taking requests, hoping for a song by Fear, an early punk band fronted by Flea, or something off of “Siamese Dream” by the Smashing Pumpkins. Both of them would also be seen crowdsurfing later in the show…