BOTTLEROCK KICKS OFF ITS GARGANTUAN 2025 FESTIVAL WITH PERFORMANCES BY REMI WOLF, SUBLIME, AND GREEN DAY
Photos courtesy of BottleRock Napa Valley
I have the best problem ever—I go to a lot of music festivals. I spend time in sun-scorched crowds, sweaty, with locked knees after long days standing in place. However, I haven’t regretted a single one; each new festival experience brings about new friends and new favorite artists, or memories made with ones I already loved. I decided to go to BottleRock Napa Valley lightly on a whim. There were a few acts on the lineup slated for Friday that I already really loved, like my peers in Ultra Q. My sister’s favorite band, Rebelution, was playing Saturday, so I figured the brief drive and tens of thousands of steps over a weekend was worth it, you know, summer body prep. My sister couldn’t make it for the first day, so I hopped in a black VW Beetle with friends I met at 924 Gilman St. to watch as 6 years of my life fell full circle.
We arrived at the festival grounds in the early afternoon, just in time for me to catch Ultra Q for the god knows how many-th time. I checked out the media tent, pleasantly surprised by a stocked fridge full of drinks, and meandered over to the mainstage. As fate would have it, I caught a barricade spot, similarly to how I simply strolled into a small warehouse in a Chula Vista back alley in 2019, when I saw them play for the first time. They always put on a fantastic show; I wouldn’t keep coming back if the music were mid-tier. However, this time, a newfound confidence was visible and audible in the group, from typically timid guitarist Enzo Malaspina’s adrenaline-boosted performance to frontman Jakob Armstrong’s strongly articulated lead vocals. I felt like I was on the other side of the world, away from drummer Chris Malaspina and bassist Kevin Judd, but I considered this inconvenience pleasant. How fortunate am I to have watched this band blossom from the ground up, beginning as a small seedling, now fully blossomed in the springtime.
The Bay Area vibes were loud the entire festival day. I decided promptly after Ultra Q finished their set that I was in prime film photography territory, so I stayed put for the rest of the day. Bay Area culture is divided rather complexly, with punk rock and rap music taking precedence over everything else. A multitude of “greats” have emerged from beneath the cracks of the Golden Gate Bridge, including rapper E-40, whose early work defined a large part of my youth, despite my not quite looking the part. Disappointingly, he was about half an hour late, citing “traffic” as the culprit. His hype man had a great playlist, though, and it was visibly a millennial-based East Bay crowd taking up much of the mainstage. I was surprised at how many of E-40’s songs I knew once he arrived, though, thanks to my older sister’s mixtapes. He did look like he wanted to be there, so perhaps it really was traffic making him late.
Remi Wolf was the most pleasantly surprising act of the day, possibly because her biggest fans were around me, singing along to every word as loudly as they could. I (admiringly) compared Wolf to a theatre kid—it takes one to know one—as she had us doing very familiar warmups mid-set. Her range was fantastic, soulful, and unexpected. I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what her music might sound like, but I wasn’t expecting her to be that good. Sometimes, sticking around at the barricade for an entire festival day has fantastic perks like this. It’s a great channel for music discovery; you’ll see at least 6 different acts before your favorite headliner appears, making it nearly impossible to find something you don’t like. I went home and listened to Wolf’s studio recordings after, glad I accidentally stood through her whole set.
I was most excited to see the Rome-less version of Sublime, since I’d already seen most of the lineup multiple times over, besides them. I had been calling this festival “Jakobchella” for weeks, as both Billie Joe Armstrong and Bradley Nowell had the same idea to name their kid Jakob at similar periods in the 90s. I wonder if the ‘90s rockstars had a round table discussion while they established their families, and those two came to the same conclusion. Regardless, Sublime’s iconic discography is good enough on its own; the sentimental value of Jakob Nowell continuing his dad’s unmistakable legacy is even better. His energetic stage presence and captivating chemistry with the band made it well worth the sunburns. Of course, a few Sublime songs have gone viral on TikTok, but they were already among the most famous of all time. Still, my favorite part of the performance was seeing the range of fans, from OGs who watched Nowell’s dad perform them to new ones who discovered them on their For You Page, all captivated by the frontman’s charisma.
Finally, the headliners made their way onto the stage with their classic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” introduction. I jumpscared myself on the big screen a couple of times, managing to capture the moment on my iPhone camera. It’s surreal seeing yourself so largely on-camera, side profile, fully vulnerable and on display. Punk Bunny came out to toss t-shirts and hit the worm, an oddly familiar silhouette carrying the iconic mascot’s energy perfectly. That was among the best worms I’ve ever seen. It’s not a Green Day show without these pre-set rituals, and this one felt extra special, granted the scope of the event. I believe this was my third time watching Green Day at the barricade, but my first after they earned a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, filmed a movie, and birthed a coffee company named after aforementioned mascot. Something about being back home as all this unfolds, paired with attending the festival with friends I met at the venue where they got their start, was nothing short of kismet, a sweet kiss from the cosmos.
Of course, Green Day’s set is always explosive—quite literally, with bangs that feel eerie in 2025’s America. Their pyrotechnics send a nice warm blanket over the first few rows as some of the most legendary songs of all time are sung by thousands of diehard fans. I began as a casual listener, an emo kid who devoted myself to everything adjacent but primarily stuck to the likes of Fall Out Boy. It wasn’t until Pete Wentz signed Ultra Q that I deep-dove into their lore, earnestly becoming a supporter thanks to their firm ethos and performances like the one at BottleRock. I am never bored at a Green Day concert, even when Billie Joe Armstrong pulls out his acoustic guitar for “Good Riddance.” Rather, I am always awestruck by the true community they’ve established in tandem with their legacy. My favorite part of the event is always when they ask a fan to either sing with them or play guitar with them. Today’s special guest was a sweet young fan named Donna, seemingly an enthusiastic teenager who was having the best day of her life. I wept for her, as a former (and perhaps ongoing) fangirl who had no idea adulthood would lead me to that same barricade spot I clung to at her age.
The most surprising aspect of Green Day’s BottleRock set was the fact that it kept going, but not in the sense that it “dragged on.” Rather, their discography is so vast that they could play a setlist of festival-ready hits to appeal to casual listeners and keep going for an hour and a half. There were several moments where they landed on a big one, and I thought that we were approaching the encore, only for there to be a half hour left of the show. Again, this is a fantastic problem to have, as I was entertained the whole way through. Finally, Flavor Flav made a surprise appearance at the end of the night, after being shouted out earlier in the set, a reminder that magic is everywhere for those with the eyes to see it. As I left the festival grounds, I snatched up a guitar pick that I found on the ground, similarly to how I did at 2021’s Hella Mega Tour. Full-circle indeed.