On Monday, Green Day performed at Nationals Park in Washington DC alongside The Smashing Pumpkins. An hourlong rain delay caused trouble for the tour kickoff.
Smashing Pumpkins got yelled at
It has come to light that Smashing Pumpkins were heckled during the show as many yelled at the band about Rancid’s set being cut because of the weather.
There was more than half of the 41,000-plus crowd had already filtered into Nationals Park in the district by the time Rancid blasted on stage. However, the quartet of Tim Armstrong, Matt Freeman, Lars Frederiksen and Branden Steineckert had barely ripped through their 1995 album opener, “Maxwell Murder,” and the recent “Tomorrow Never Comes,” when an unexpected storm rolled through and nixed the remainder of their expected 30-minute set.
Hopefully, Rancid will go through the tour’s September 28 end in San Diego without any other disruptions.
Green Day in trouble
Meanwhile, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong got the band in trouble. There have been calls for Secret Service to investigate the band as Armstrong protested against former President Donald Trump disgustingly.
The band encountered calls for a boycott as Armstrong decided held up a Trump mask. He even altered the lyrics of ‘American Idiot’ to “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda” just weeks after the former president was shot.
A video clip on X depicted that Billie Joe Armstrong sparked controversy with his actions. He labeled Donald Trump an “idiot” and the mask represents a dead or defeated Trump. It comes a few weeks after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.
The band has a history of protesting against the former president, using this changed lyric in multiple shows since 2016. It has come to light that during a televised performance on this year’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the band used the lyrics replacing “Redneck” with “MAGA.”
It was on July 13 that Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire and attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump as he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Crooks was on a rooftop about 430 feet away. However, Trump survived as the bullet only grazed Trump’s ear in a barrage of gunfire that killed one rally-goer and injured two others.
Within 26 seconds of the first shot, a Secret Service counter-sniper stationed on another nearby roof returned fire and immediately killed Crooks, according to law enforcement officials.
Police noted that that Crooks, who was a registered Republican and reportedly a former Trump supporter, physically went to the site of the rally the day before and early that morning.
