PINOLE, California. – Punk rock band Green Day returned home to the East Bay on Sunday before a roaring crowd of die-hard fans, not in a concert hall but this time in a 7-Eleven in Pinole with a checkered past.

“We’ve come full circle, we’re back here in Pinole and my family still lives here in the West Costa County area,” said Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong.

Although they originated from the nearby rodeo, in the 1980s the teenagers met for Slurpees and hot dogs on their way to and from Pinole Valley High School in Pinole.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and later Tre Cool founded the band that still makes music today.

“We (all) came together because there were so many great bands from Pinole,” Armstrong said.

“Great things can come from anywhere, from your head, from your bedroom, from your friend’s house,” said singer and bassist Dirnt. “Just believe in yourself.”

Generations of fans from around the world stood in line for hours hoping to have their memorabilia, including bobbleheads and records, signed, while others brought their guitars.

“Their music just gives me, I don’t know how to say it, life, the strength to keep going,” said Ana Brandan, who traveled all the way from Argentina with a friend to see the Green Day concert at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Friday before seeing their favorite band up close in Pinole.

“They are one of the first bands that made me want to play guitar and since then they have been my idol,” said Luis Elequin of nearby Hercules.

Ken Chiu of Fremont brought his young son, hoping to update the photo he took with the band twenty years ago.

“They channel a certain energy, just through their music and their lyrics,” said Chiu, a teacher who also saw one of his former students in the crowd.

“They’re the best band!” said Oscar Echavarria of Vallejo. “Their whole range of songs, but especially ‘American Idiot,’ which I grew up with.”

The trio was presented with the key to the town of Pinole and a plaque was unveiled outside the store commemorating the historical significance of the supermarket, which is mentioned in the lyrics of “Jesus of Suburbia.” A large mural reading “Green Day was here” was also unveiled, signed by the band members in spray paint.

“I’m a Pinole kid myself. The fact that they grew up in the same area, went to the same high school as me and that they’re here now and this store was really our American dream,” says Jay Sarang, the second-generation owner of the 7-Eleven franchise in Pinole. He hopes his children will take over the business one day.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the band’s breakthrough album “Dookie,” Green Day now has its own limited-edition Punky Bunny Coffee, formerly Oakland Coffee Works, founded by the rockers in 2015 and available at 7-Eleven.

Brewing slowly is a way to, as the song says, “wake me up when September is over.”

In the crowd were about 200 diehard fans who waited for hours outside the supermarket to welcome the musicians home. Some were lucky enough to see Green Day play at Oracle Park on Friday.

Green Day’s world tour ends on September 28th in San Diego.