NEW YORK, NY.- With a raised eyebrow, a wrinkled nose and lips curled into a defiant grin, Billie Joe Armstrong looked wide-eyed into the crowd at Citi Field in Queens on Monday night and mouthed the words “I love you.” Tré Cool sat, blue-haired and snarling, at the drum kit. Mike Dirnt planted his feet firmly in a wide stance, with his bass at his knees.

Green Day, the long-running California punk band, opened the full United States leg of its Saviors Tour in New York this week, with a bill featuring contemporaries (Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid) and young upstarts (the Linda Lindas). The tour, supporting the group’s latest album, coincides with the 30th anniversary of its breakout 1994 LP “Dookie” and the 20th anniversary of its acclaimed 2004 release “American Idiot.”

Both albums were played in their entirety before a cross-generational crowd that became a pulsing sea of black, red and neon pink. Despite the smothering humidity, there was gelled hair as far as the eye could see. Studded belts sat atop black skinny jeans and red ties adorned black button-down shirts.

The deeply devoted had lined up early in the afternoon. Buttons and pins were traded, stories of adolescent mischief and fond memories exchanged. A teenage fan recounted how her father got onstage with the band once at Warped Tour.

“I’ve waited 10 years for this,” said Elijah Shephard, 19, who discovered “Dookie” in elementary school and was attending his first Green Day show. “‘Coming Clean’ is a big one, because it’s about him coming out as bisexual,” he added of the 1994 track, noting that “Jesus of Suburbia,” from the 2004 album, also had personal resonance, “because coming from a broken home, it’s not an easy thing to deal with. And I think Billie really puts it into nice words.”

For Maddox Thornton, 19, another first-timer, witnessing Green Day in the open air before a crowd of tens of thousands underscored its genre’s enduring power. “Punk went from playing in small clubs, sweaty clubs, for 30 to 50 people, and now they’re selling out baseball stadiums in New York City,” he said, his hands tucked firmly in his pockets. “It just shows this is what punk is.”

Travis Louie, an artist who grew up in Queens, didn’t know Dirnt bought one of his paintings at an art show in California until the bass player mentioned him on Instagram.

“He contacted me and then he asked me: ‘Hey, you want to go to a show?’” Louie, 55, said, laughing in disbelief, with his family seated next to him. “I would have gone to see them anyway. They’re legitimate. They’re the real thing.”

While the six musicians onstage — the trio plus guitarists Kevin Preston and Jason White, and keyboardist Coley O’Toole — stuck to the largely stripped-down sound of Green Day’s melodic punk, the band amped up the visual spectacle for the stadium setting. Sudden bursts of pyrotechnics, cued to nearly every track, sent an orange haze over the faces in the crowd. Towering images ripped from the cover art from both anniversary albums took over the stage. An inflatable airplane made its way across the field and released toy missiles into the eager, outstretched arms below.

Young children wrapped their limbs tightly around the shoulders and waists of adults as they bounced to “When I Come Around.” The mosh pit circled furiously to the end of “Are We the Waiting/St. Jimmy” as onlookers headbanged in time with the beat. Signs scrawled with phrases like “Green Day You Saved My Life I Turn 18 Today Can I Play Guitar for You” rose and fell above the heads in the crowd, in hopes that Armstrong would take notice and choose their holders to join him onstage, a Green Day concert tradition.

After 2 1/2 hours, nearly 40 songs and a finale where Cool and Dirnt hit the stage dressed as Deadpool and Wolverine, the crowd staggered off into the night, drenched in sweat and nostalgia. Earlier, Armstrong issued a note of appreciation nodding to one of the band’s hits: “New York is paradise tonight.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.