Ned Raggett: "Shortly after I arrived at KUCI I started hearing about this band called Green Day, who I didn’t know about at all. Either whoever was at KLA who was into them didn’t run into me or they just weren’t big there at all, but KUCI had a happy fanbase and then some. One thing led to another and sometime in midwinter 1993 I was deep in conversation with Tre Cool for an interview for the student paper about a forthcoming show. (I have a variety of Tre Cool memories around this time as he was around campus for a couple of stretches — long story.) At the time there was major interest in the group from various labels — the bidding war was on and of course we know how it all turned out and what happened with them, so no need to belabor that point. In 1993, it was all up for grabs, and so Sony, Geffen and Warner Bros. were all anxious to secure the band’s services (there might have been others, not sure). Therefore, the show that they were scheduled to play at the UC Irvine pub was something of a showcase performance, as reps — and allegedly David Geffen himself — were due to make an appearance. I remember Jen V. being way anxious about the show for that reason, as well as for the fact that the pub manager was getting pretty antsy about having a bunch of punk fans at his place. This was all compounded by the fact that the other two bands on the bill had their own following — the Women, a great Costa Mesa act that never quite broke through, were going to open, while Face to Face, a couple of years away from their own major label leap, were in the middle. And to top that off, Green Day had to cancel a show the previous night in the Inland Empire but apparently told the crowd to go to the UC Irvine show instead as it was cheap and/or free, I forget which. So there were going to be even more people there that night than before. And to top THAT off there were a lot of police and security folks on campus that very evening because one building over was a huge presentation and speech by recently defeated independent candidate for president H. Ross Perot. I got over there early and remembered thinking ‘this is not going to be a normal evening’ when I was out on the balcony looking at the HUGE line of people waiting on the student center terrace to go up the narrow staircase into the venue. Do keep in mind, Green Day were not yet famous in the all-over-radio/MTV sense; Dookie wasn’t even recorded yet. But I pretty much assumed there and then that they were going to be famous by default if they could pull in that kind of a crowd. All was increasingly packed and somewhat chaotic inside — Jen V. was running around like mad making sure everything was okay, the pub manager was already looking like this was the last thing he wanted. The Women played a sharp set — I was actually right near the front for it, to my slight surprise but everyone was more or less behaving themselves, since again, no slamming, no pogoing, no dancing, nothing. This while the line of people continued to slowly file in and make everything more cramped. I remember stepping away from the stage when Face to Face got ready — and after that it’s ALL a blur. I wasn’t caught up in anything, in fact I really don’t know how I missed it, but things went ridiculous pretty swiftly. I think Face to Face lasted about a song, half a song, before the pub manager figured that the crowd was not going to stay still (in a word, duh) and called the evening over. So, no rest of the Face to Face set, no Green Day set…nothing. I’ve heard various stories about what exactly did happen — apparently Geffen or his rep was reached by phone in the big limousine heading down to OC so they turned back around and went home, while the Sony rep was apparently maced. (Or was that an Interscope rep after all?) The police and security people who happened to be around took great delight in the fact that they were needed and while this wasn’t Black Flag being assaulted by the LAPD in the slightest, there was all sorts of squabbling, nonsense, annoyed punks, happy to be annoyed policemen and so forth. I just remember walking away home past the nearby ATMs, or maybe I went up to the student newspaper offices to type something out. To top it all off, Mike Dirnt then broke his ankle when the band were going over to where they were staying for the evening. Apparently a Dookie song obliquely references that incident but I can’t remember which. So again, it wasn’t a Green Day show but a nonshow, and it wasn’t like they didn’t show, they just couldn’t play. A year later “Basket Case” was in permanent rotation and the band haven’t needed to look back since but I do wish I could have at least seen them then along with all those other, retrospectively amazing pub and noontime shows."

Billie Joe Armstrong: "In Irvine, California, Mike's girlfriend was having a pillow fight and, uh, Mike lost. Mike went right into a pole, had six stitches in his head, a whiplash, one broken arm and one sprained elbow. ...We were on tour and Mike and his girlfriend we're having a pillow fight, just joking around like crazy couples do, and he ran backwards straight into a pole and he fell really weird,' says Billie Joe. 'He broke his arm, sprained his elbow, he had six stitches in his head, and he had whiplash. We did get a good song out of it called Pulling Teeth, though.'"