Hear "When It's Time" Performed Live in 1992 at 924 Gilman Street

[Todd]

In honor of Dookie's 25th anniversary, I'm releasing one of my most prized recordings!

This is likely the first time the band ever performed this live, and may have been the only time they played it live until 2009. Notice that Mike has beautiful harmonies in this recording that were left out of the official release in 2010  

If you guys want to download the rest of this show, you can do so here. This show also features the first known performances of "Having a Blast", "Burnout", "Basket Case", "J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)", and "In the End" (which was not played live again until 2013, so check out the only early recording of that as well!).

[Todd]

I uploaded "In the End" to Youtube for convenient listening. Enjoy! 

 

[pacejunkie punk]

 OMG this is amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing this I had no idea When It’s Time was so old. What a beautiful and mature song for him to write when he was still practically a teenager, I’m blown away. Everyone knows Good Riddance was around for a while but not this too. Wow. (And I agree the harmonies rule. I wish they’d do that more these days).

I always thought it was a shame to throw this song away to the musical (and cast album) and not release it on a GD album, it’s so good. It could have been the closer on Warning instead of Macy’s Day Parade. I thought it was just an American Idiot outtake I didn’t know he had held onto it for so long. 

With all the talk about Dookie today it struck me how few people in the mainstream knew that their first two albums were mostly about girls and a lot less “punk” than albums three and four.  Ironic that they would come to represent punk (or pop punk) to so many people when they’ve always been so much more than that. 

[aydge89]

20 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

I thought it was just an American Idiot outtake I didn’t know he had held onto it for so long.

I thought I read this somewhere too. Well I guess not then.

I think it would have fit nicely on Nimrod.

[Yosuke Hanamura]

Kind of odd to think it finally released on the AI Broadway Album of all things.

[pacejunkie punk]

6 minutes ago, Yosuke Hanamura said:

Kind of odd to think it finally released on the AI Broadway Album of all things.

Really odd. If you could go back in time and tell that 1992 Billie at Gilman where that song would end up some day he’d never believe it. He was clearly so embarrassed to even be playing it he joked around at the end.  

[Montclare]

There was one interview where Michael Mayer said Billie wrote it for Adrienne when he was 19.

[dallasthemenace]

thanks for sharing this gig! fucking amazing setlist. 

[Liam]

1 hour ago, aydge89 said:

I thought I read this somewhere too. Well I guess not then.

I think it would have fit nicely on Nimrod.

It was an outtake of American Idiot because it was considered for the album, just watch HLAHG. Then when the American Idiot musical came along, Billie gave the song to Michael Mayer to use. After that, they just decided to use the Green Day version as a bonus track for the cast album

[Hermione]

Yeah it was already known that it was originally written when he was 19, but it's still really cool how it was and then how it eventually came out

What a find Todd!!! Knowing it was written back then is one thing but actually hearing it is so awesome

3 hours ago, pacejunkie punk said:

 

With all the talk about Dookie today it struck me how few people in the mainstream knew that their first two albums were mostly about girls and a lot less “punk” than albums three and four.  Ironic that they would come to represent punk (or pop punk) to so many people when they’ve always been so much more than that. 

I know right? It's such a prime example of their "sappy" (actually just very honest and sweet imo) songs about girls from back then. A lot of people who associate them with the "I don't care" side of Dookie and anger of Insomniac etc would be surprised.

[JardyOfSuburbia]

Well, this is amazing. Fascinating to find out how long some songs have actually been around.

[jengd]

@Todd - this is great, I knew When It's Time was so old but I thought Billie said they had never performed it, what a great find and great version, I love the harmonies thank you so much for sharing this!

[Insomniac1984]

Thanks for sharing this. I would love to listen to a "1992 version" of this song in Studio. I liked the vocal harmonies!!!

[pacejunkie punk]

I wonder if Billie even knows this is out there. Someone should get it to him he might even repost it. 

[Sarcasm]

that felt nice to hear

[BucksCoEric]

I remember Michael Mayer saying that Billie wrote When its Time for 80 when they were still dating so he really held onto it for around 20 years though i didnt expect Billie to ever perform it live before the musical. Thats pretty incredible to hear this.

[Squashie]

Did he perform it as an acoustic during some of the 21CB tour? I swear I’ve seen video of him performing it during that time. 

[pacejunkie punk]

Just now, squashie09 said:

Did he perform it as an acoustic during some of the 21CB tour? I swear I’ve seen video of him performing it during that time. 

Yeah he did. I remember the audience singing “I love you” and he sang back “I love you too” 😍

 

There’s also this lovely one:

 

[Otis Big]

Oh wow. Thanks, a lot, man. This is super cool.

[Other Billie]

I wonder we're the second  video  audio came from sounds like a soundboard  

[Stewe]

8 hours ago, Other Billie said:

I wonder we're the second  video  audio came from sounds like a soundboard  

It's from Manchester 2010, some songs have been aired on the radio

[Marki.]

This is wonderful  Thank you for sharing! 

 

[Alan86]

Wow 😲 , 17 years he held on to the song before releasing it. That’s amazing thanks for the upload. 

Edit: At least 17 years

[DeJennsitized]

This is super cool  

[pacejunkie punk]

Makes me wonder what other amazing songs he wrote as a teenager that we’ve never heard.