Abbey Doyle

Courier & Press

Kristin Schaum has been playing guitar since she was 8. So when Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong was asking the audience at a recent concert who could play "Knowledge," her arm shot in the air.

She'd even prepared for this moment by scrawling the message, "I can play Knowledge," on a folder with a marker before the concert.

"He came our way and everyone was screaming and pointing to me," the 15-year-old Evansville girl said. "He made a joke about us doing arts and crafts, walked away and then came back and told me to come on stage."

A video of the moment from the Friday Las Vegas concert posted to YouTube shows Armstrong bantering back and forth with Kristin, asking her age and how long she'd been playing. He then said: "Alright, get your a** up here!"

"The security guard picked me up out of the crowd like a rag doll and put me on stage," she said, still reveling in the unreal experience. "(Armstrong) gave me a big ol' hug and then showed me the chords."

Her mom, Traci Schaum, lined up at 4 a.m. for the general admission concert to ensure they got good seats. Kristin joined her at noon.

At first Kristin didn't grasp the song, but Armstrong quickly showed her one more time and it clicked. Armstrong smiled, took a few steps back and presented Kristin to the cheering crowd before he joined in singing the words to the rock song, ushering her down the catwalk.

"I was so nervous," she said. "I felt like I could have done better but honestly it felt so natural once I got going, like nothing else mattered because I was up on stage with Green Day."

After finishing the song, Armstrong had grabbed a guitar himself and encouraged Kristin to join him for his signature move defying gravity where he jumps and strums mid-air. Kristin joined him, smiling as he encouraged her to jump with him again. Before getting off stage, Kristin asked Armstrong if he would take a selfie with her; she'd brought her phone on stage.

Armstrong could be heard in the video laughing, saying he couldn't do a selfie in the middle of a concert. Then he quickly changed his mind.

"You can't take a selfie now!" he said. "... Give me your camera!"

The two pushed some buttons before turning their backs to the audience so Armstrong could take the selfie with the packed MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Kristin was able to keep the guitar -- autographed by all the band members -- and said the experience is one that won't leave her anytime soon.

"It was amazing," she said. "Everywhere we went people recognized me from the concert. We couldn't get 10 feet afterward without people saying, 'Kristin, Kristin, Kristin!' or 'Rock on' or 'You were amazing!' We had to be escorted back to our room."

Kristin, who was in a band with friends until the last couple of years, said this experience has inspired her to try to start playing again. Music has always been a dream.

"I hadn't really thought about it for a while but getting on that stage, it was awesome," she said. "It made me remember what that was like and realize what it could be."

So she plans to start playing on stage again. She's been taking lessons from Mike Boren at Evansville Music Academy but said she wants to perform more. Her dad, Scott Schaum, owns Schaum's Pizzeria, which hosts an open mic night weekly. She plans to get on that stage soon.

Kristin originally expected her spring break highlight to be the views of the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam.

"It really was unreal," she said. "I'm just so lucky. It was incredible, amazing, really a once-in-a-lifetime chance."