Watch Green Day Play for a Bunch of Apathetic Kids in 1990

For every band that becomes famous, there are thousands of bands that never do more than play at their high school. Of course, often times the bands that do make it big play those high school gigs, too. Green Day fall into the latter of those two categories.

A video that surfaced this week is a historic document, preserving for all eternity when Green Day were just another band playing whatever gigs they could find. That's what you have to do when you're starting out. It's called "paying your dues," and it usually sucks.

And this particular event recorded on their high school campus in 1990 doesn't seem to break that age-old pattern. There were a few kids who seemed into the show, but there were more who were not. Mostly, students walked by barely giving a passing glance to what would become one of the biggest punk bands in the world.

Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has some interesting thoughts on salmon that he shares before playing "16." We didn't realize that's what that song is about.

The clip has been making the rounds on the interweb, probably due to Green Day's recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sometimes it's good to look back on where the greats got their start when considering where they are now. Just four years after this sad high school performance, the band was playing for thousands of enthusiastic fans at Woodstock '94. Check of footage of that show below.

 Green Day Live at Woodstock '94