Even MORE pictures and reviews from Ottawa Bluesfest 2025: Green Day, Les Shirley, and The Linda Lindas

[More from Karen Coughtrey, Melody Maloney, and Ross MacDonald. – AC]

Friday, July 18, 2025, was affectionately known as Green Day night at Ottawa Bluesfest but the night was opened by two sets of hard rocking punk ladies who brought the crowds in early: Les Shirley, and The Linda Lindas.

Montreal rockers Les Shirley got the big show started on the main stage, arriving on stage to a teaser of the iconic track ‘Sandstorm’ from Darude and then going straight into their songs ‘It’s Time’ and ‘Sayonara.’

They announced that this was their 20th show in 5 weeks but if they were feeling any exhaustion it didn’t show in their fantastic performance. Before ‘Nothing Compares’ they entertained the growing crowd with a road story, a bonding moment, about being stuck in traffic in Germany when nature called.

Lead singer Raphaëlle Chouinard was notably wearing a shirt that said “more women on stage” on the front and “more women backstage” on the back, a sign that they, like the other bands on the bill that night, were not afraid to speak out or be a little political. For example Chouinard shared about meeting a man in California and then later discovering he was a Trump supporter. Since she will continue to sing the song she wrote about him, she wrote a new chorus, much to the delight of the audience, with the lyrics:

Trump is a fucking asshole x8
The Shit is about to hit the fan
Actually the shit is already all over the fan, ya…

They also shared that they’ve spent all winter working on a new album that they will record in August and played some new songs including ‘Not My Problem.’ In a blast from the past, “Think 2002 MuchMusic” they said, they played a cover of the hit from the Russian pop duo, t.A.T.u ‘All The Things She Said.’

They ended their set with ‘Korben Dallas.’

The Linda Lindas arrived on stage to a huge ovation from an already large and adoring crowd. They opened with a teaser, the opening lines, of Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ before starting into their songs ‘No Obligation’ and ‘Too Many Things.’

Eloise Wong exclaimed how happy they were to get to play for an hour, after being on tour with Green Day and only having a 20 minute set. They are true to the genre of punk rock and set the stage ablaze with their set: fast and furious vocals and instrumentals, tearing through songs, taking no prisoners.

They spoke about their newest album, now almost a year old, No Obligation, released October 2024 and played “Excuse Me,’ ‘Cartographers’ and ‘Don’t Think’ from that album.

The set also included ‘Nino,’ ‘Stop,’ ‘Nothing Would Change’ and a cover of the Talking Heads’ ‘Found A Job.’

Their backdrops included a giant pair of eyes watching the crowd and a homage to their viral L.A. Public Library show.

They too are a band known for being outspoken. They flashed the words “We rebuild what we destroy” on the screen and gave an impassioned speech to conclude their set which included the words “Stand with trans people. Stand with Immigrants. Free Palestine. It’s getting scary in the U.S. and we have to stick together. Never Go Down to the racist, sexist boy.” A perfect introduction to their set concluding performance of their song, ‘Racist, Sexist Boy.’

What appeared to be the largest audience of this year’s Bluesfest so far began to assemble and the main bowl began to feel extremely crowded. Green Day hasn’t played a show in Ottawa since 2009, so the large crowd was no surprise.

The day had dragged on for some, as anticipation of seeing a bucket list band built, but finally it was time for the main event. Things got started early as about twenty minutes before their anticipated start time, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ began to blare followed by ‘Blitzkrieg Pop’ from the Ramones and finally Green Day’s intro theme which included bits from ‘We Will Rock You’ during which the band’s mascot Pink Bunny, in Billie Joe Cosplay (black vest, red tie) would entertain (and crowd surf) and a giant fist holding a heart shaped grenade (from the album cover of American Idiot) would inflate on stage.

The members of Green Day appeared on stage opening of course with ‘American Idiot’ changing some lyrics to reflect the current American political situation, “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda!” and added excitement about being in the beautiful COUNTRY of Canada. The words “No War” flashed on screen before they continued with ‘Holiday.’

Billie Joe searched the crowd and selected a young girl, Shawna, to join him on stage to sing part of ‘Know Your Enemy.’ The crowd was skeptical at the selection but the young girl killed it and did a totally awesome job silencing the skeptics.

Circling back to the topic of our country, Billie Joe would also joke that they weren’t going to leave. “Green Day is from Ottawa now!” he said.

Before the show, elder-millennials and gen-xers could be heard worrying that they wouldn’t play enough of their favourite old songs, and would play too much new material. Their worries were unfounded. Billie Joe asked how many in attendance were old school fans and then joked (but it’s also probably true) that the rest of the set list was older than Les Shirley and The Linda Lindas combined.

They played lots of favourites including ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams,’ ‘Welcome To Paradise,’ ‘Minority,’ ‘Basket Case’ and ‘When I Come Around.’

Other notable parts of the set list included ‘I Was There’ off their debut album from 1990 39/smooth, 2024’s hit single ‘Dilemma’ (which featured a snippet of Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin’ as intro), and the reaction to the timely opening lines of ‘21 Guns.’

The enthralling show was made even more so by their generous use of pyrotechnics, punctuating many songs with cannon blasts, bursts of flames, fireballs, at one point a fire waterfall effect and ending off the night with a firework show. In addition to the fun of the “bad year” blimp travelling above the crowd they showered the crowd not once but twice with confetti. The second set having the tour name or three one eyed bastards on it offering a fun free little souvenir for those in the ginormous crowd lucky enough to catch a flake.

Like every band they saved the best, most known, for last and in Green Day’s case there couldn’t be a better, more apt song to end a fantastic night of rocking out with thousands of your closest friends and neighbours. The crowd sang ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ loud and proud along with the band, for many, a dream night of their younger self, fulfilled.

Green Day
Billie Joe Armstrong – lead vocals, guitar, harmonica
Mike Dirnt – bass, vocals
Tré Cool – drums, percussion, vocals
touring:
Jason White – guitar
Kevin Preston – guitar
Jason Freese – keyboards, saxophone

The Linda Lindas
Eloise Wong – bass, guitars, vocals
Bela Salazar – guitars, vocals
Lucia de la Garza – guitar, vocals
Mila de la Garza – drums, vocals

Les Shirley
Raphaëlle Chouinard – vocals, guitar
Lisandre Bourdages – drums
Sarah Dion – bass