Green Day Perform ‘Church on Sunday’ + ‘Warning’ for First Time in 21 Years

In preparation for their headlining Lollapalooza performance tonight (July 31), Green Day held a warm-up show at the Metro in Chicago, Ill. on July 29 and it gave the band a chance to dig deeper into their catalog, pulling out some rarely played tracks.

In addition to delighting attendees with some familiar staples (“American Idiot,” “Basket Case,” etc.), they pulled out several tunes that returned to the live setlist after many years, including two – “Church on Sunday” and “Warning” – that haven’t shown up in over two full decades.

In fact, according to Stereogum, they disregarded much of their planned setlist in favor of featuring numerous tracks (from throughout their career) that’ve been absent from their concerts for a long time, including “Too Dumb to Die,” “Whatshername,” “One of My Lies” and “Christie Road.”

That said, the inclusion of “Church on Sunday” and “Warning” – both from 2000’s Warning – were the biggest surprises since neither song had been performed onstage since 2001.

In the fan-shot footage below (filmed by Liz Finch), you can even see frontman Billie Joe Armstrong hand over the mic to a fan in the audience for the second verse (during which said fan yells, “Fuck yeah!”). Meanwhile, the trio play the music perfectly as the rest of the crowd sings along. (Click here to watch an alternate angle.)

As you can also see, spectators were just as stoked to have them play “Church on Sunday”:

In total, roughly two-thirds of what they did do wasn’t written down (according to reports). It’s nice to know that the boys are still keen to surprise fans after all these years.

Green Day Setlist, Chicago, Illinois at the Metro July 29 (per Setlist.fm)

1. American Idiot
2. Holiday
3. Revolution Radio
4. Letterbomb (first time since 2017)
5. Chuck on Sunday (first time since 2001)
6. Too Dumb to Die (first time since 2017)
7. Scattered
8. Bang Bang
9. Chump
10. Longview
11. Burnout
12. Disappearing Boy
13. Private Ale (first time since 2016)
14. Christie Road (first time since 2017)
15. One of My Lies (first time since 2017)
16. Whatshername (first full band performance since 2005)
17. Oh Love (partial, aborted during the first verse; first time since 2013)
18. Warning (first time since 2001; Billie hands his mic to a fan in the crowd to sing second verse; partial)
19. Murder City (first full band performance since 2013)
20. Welcome to Paradise
21. Geek Stink Breath (first time since 2017)
22. Stuck with Me
23. Basket Case
24. Brain Stew
25. St. Jimmy
26. J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva) (first time since 2017)
27. Minority
28. Warning