Green Day fan gets his time on stage

Before he drove down to the Spectrum to see Green Day from his home town of Macungie, in Lehigh County, Derek Hensinger knew that on previous tour stops Billie Joe Armstrong had been plucking a guitar player out of the crowd.

So during the band's first encore Tuesday night, after Armstrong had finished with "American Idiot" and asked the crowd, "Are you ready for something really special?" Hensinger was ready.

"I got here at 2 o'clock," said the 22-year-old guitarist and singer, who besides being a major Green Day fan plays in his own rock band, Bang Diesel. "I waited for hours to get a good spot on the floor. I made seven trips to the bathroom, but I kept coming back to the same spot."

Armstrong had brought so many singers up on stage earlier in the evening that the show at times seemed more like American Idol than American Idiot. But when Armstrong started perusing the crowd for a six-string player, Hensinger's friends energetically pointed him out.

It paid off, and before a sold-out crowd of more than 15,000 (the section behind the stage was closed off, limiting capacity), Armstrong pulled him up and offered Hensinger an ax to play, which he did with distinction.

The Green Day singer also handed over the mike and let Hensinger handle a verse of "Jesus of Suburbia," which he sang much more tunefully than the trio of vocalists who had taken a go at "Longview" a few songs earlier in the set.

Hensinger, a journalism major who graduated from Penn State in the spring and is looking for a job, said during an interview on the Spectrum's concourse that he was not a plant.

"I was ready, but I didn't know it was going to happen beforehand," said the guitarist, flashing an ear-to-ear grin while the band was still onstage, bashing through "Minority."

Added Hensinger, who has been playing for six years: "I know all the music and all the words to that song. They're the band that got me into playing music."

After the song was over, Armstrong shouted a few words in Hensinger's ear. "He said, 'You did great.' I'm not sure what else he said. I just couldn't believe I was up there."

Armstrong dispensed with him with his trademark goodbye: "You were great, now get your ass off my stage."

And what did it feel like for Hensinger to be transformed out-of-the-blue from fan to star of the show, if only for a few fleeting minutes?

"I couldn't even think of a word to describe it," said Hensinger, who said the biggest crowd he'd played before previously was 30 to 40 people at a backyard barbecue in Macungie. "It was phenomenal."

Contact music critic Dan DeLuca at 215-854-5628 or ddeluca@phillynews.com. Read his blog, "In the Mix," at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inthemix.