Kendra Meinert

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Let’s say you’re in Green Day and you also happen to be in Green Bay, so where do you hang on your day off?

Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong headed for the Broadway District, where he popped in unannounced at The Exclusive Co. on the day before the band’s sold-out show at the Resch Center.

Armstrong and a friend came in the independent record store on Dousman Street last Wednesday afternoon. Green Day had played the night before in Champaign, Ill., and had an open night on the Revolution Radio Tour before the Resch concert last Thursday.

He browsed the store’s vinyl section virtually undisturbed, said store manager Tom Smith. A group of girls in the store were “too chicken” to go up to him, Smith said, but he talked with another fan who approached him. Smith also alerted a friend whose son, Alex Barnes, is a huge Green Day fan and lives just two block away. He was in the store within minutes.

Armstrong chatted him up and graciously posed for a photo. The smile on that fan’s face was so big it made Smith tear up.

“Literally, that guy is your biggest fan in Green Bay,” Smith told Armstrong when he came up to the counter to check out. “You just made his life.”

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Armstrong bought UK band The Creation’s compilation on The Numero Group label, a Link Wray album and the David Bowie compilation “Changesonebowie,” all vinyl. He also picked up a pair of sunglasses and wanted an Exclusive Co. T-shirt, but they didn’t have his size.

“Sorry, it’s Wisconsin,” Smith told him. “We’re kind of bigger here.”

Armstrong laughed.

Smith told him he knew promoter Rich Winker, who had set up the 1994 show Green Day played in Neenah with opening act Pansy Division. Armstrong talked about some of the Wisconsin house shows the band did in the early ’90s and had high praise for the Broadway District, saying it reminded him of the college towns Green Day played early in its career.

Armstrong had also paid a visit to the neighborhood’s Kavarna (reportedly for a black coffee) and Lloyd’s Guitars, where he posed for a photo with owner Lloyd Baughcum.

Baughcum, 61, said he didn’t immediately recognize him when he came in dressed all in black and wearing a hoodie. He thought he might be in a band playing at the nearby Lyric Room. When the man with Armstrong said they were playing the Resch Center the next night, Baughcum figured out the guy looking at a drum set was Armstrong, but couldn’t immediately come up with his name.

He went into the studio, where a 14-year-old student was having a lesson, and asked for a little help. Then he told the kid Armstrong was in the store.

“He came out and almost tackled the guy. He ran out here and shook his hand,” Baughcum said. The student told Armstrong he had tickets to the show and that he was the reason he started playing guitar. He went back to his lesson, but Baughcum is fairly certain he got no more work done after that.

Armstrong spotted a vintage Harmony guitar from the ’50s or ’60s at the shop and plugged it in and played it. He was easy to talk with, Baughcum said.

“Just a very nice guy. Not pretentious or not beyond reproach,” Baughcum said. “Very humble.”

Smith noticed the same thing.

“If you’re going to judge a band by how they treat their fans, you have to give them high marks,” he said. “He comes in and he’s just a decent human being. ... I got nothing but a super cool vibe off of him.”

As for that vintage Harmony guitar? Armstrong’s assistant came in the next day and bought it.

kmeinert@pressgazettemedia.com and follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert