Paris, France

• Billie Joe said Green Day had always wanted to play the Bataclan.

• JasonofSuburbia: "Bataclan was, by far, the best gig I've ever been to. I'd told work colleagues I was going to try for a ticket and one kindly offered to cover my shift if I got one.

Sent her a message that morning saying I'd tried and failed, but thanks for the offer. An hour later, decide to try my luck again and, lo and behold, I actually get one! Cue pandemonium trying to get her to take my shift again, booking flights and accommodation and all the gubbins that come with international travel. The stress of fighting with a ticket site in a language I don't read well, booking flights, hotels, shift swaps and the added stress of getting home was worth it to see my favourite band in such an intimate and iconic setting and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat."

• Cris: "So, after being absolutely obsessed with Green Day since January 2nd 2005 (yes I remember the exact date), the obsession faded away gradually, but steadily and completely (or so I thought at the time) some time around 2013. For a decade I walked around having no idea what Green Day was up to. Then October 30th 2023 comes, I checked Instagram mindlessly scrolling while drinking my coffee after some morning meeting, and a Green Day post catches my eye because it has the words Bataclan and Paris in it. All this time I had kept Green Day on my Instagram, but I wasn't paying attention, I would very often skip their stories when they were promoting stuff, so I wasn't sure what this was. A memory from a show they played at Bataclan? No! It's a show in Bataclan for that weekend. I got the feeling that I owed it to my teenage/early twenties self to at least try to go. Back when I was obsessed with Green Day I was living in Venezuela, and I remembered often seeing Green Day (or one of their side projects) playing these surprise shows in small venues, and a lot of my online friends in the US or the UK going, and as happy as I felt for them, I also felt so left out. I would have given an arm and a leg back then for Green Day to play a small surprise show in my city. And now here I was, living in Paris, and Green Day was going to play here, in Paris, in a venue with a capacity of 1500 people no more than 40min away from my place! So yes, I felt I owed it to myself to at least try to get a ticket. On the other hand I genuinely had an ethical conundrum: because this had been my dream back then, I knew how much this could mean to people who were fans now, today. If I got a ticket, would I be occupying a place I no longer deserved, and someone else who deserved it more would be left out? I know it might sound silly, but I really struggled with this. In the end I decided to leave it to fate: I would try to buy the tickets, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy, so if I got them that'd be it, I'd go.

Tickets went on sale next morning, October 31st, and I was the billionth person on the queue, by the time it was my turn it appeared to be sold it. 'Oh well, I saved some good money at least!' Went into a zoom meeting for work, and when it was over some 30 min later, I switched tabs and tried again, kind of just out of habit. And suddenly I have two tickets for the show in Bataclan! So I tell my partner we're going to see Green Day live this Saturday, and he's a bit confused by this (he has stayed confused by the effect this band has on me ever since). We arrive to the venue about 20 minutes before doors and the line was huge! By the time we got in the area in front of the stage was very full, so I stayed back on a slightly higher level in which I was right at the front, so I had a pretty good view. And then they came on stage, and the moment they played the first chords of American Idiot, insanity came rushing back. It was instant. I was suddenly 15 again, living out a dream I didn't know I still had. They sounded as good as I remembered, they were still as full of energy, and full of surprises. They played Look Ma No Brains twice in a row, they also played TADIKM twice, Geek Stink Breath and Stuart and the Ave. They played Revolution Radio and Father of All, which were a debut for me at least, Letterbomb, which I didn't know had become less rare in their live shows, then they brought someone on stage to play Good Riddance, something I had never seen them do before. I just couldn't stop smiling and singing along and jumping up and down the whole time (and I had a bad foot and a bad knee at the time, but they also reverted back to their teenage version, because they didn't bother me once during the show). And I remembered all the lyrics too! The only song I couldn't sing along to were 1981 and Father of All. I loved and enjoyed every second of it."