During a concert, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong stopped fans who were fighting. In the video clip, he said that there was no reason to fight and that everybody turned up to have a good time. Check it out below:
While Billie Joe Armstrong played peacemaker in this case, he once got into a scuffle with a fan. The musician is unafraid to stand up to injustice or, when the moment calls for it, to deliver a ferocious dropkick, as he proved in 1997 during a performance at The Filmore in San Francisco.
Armstrong has been on the right side of history more often than not throughout his career, and he wants Green Day concerts to be a place in which people can be free to be themselves without judgement.
The shows are designed to be safe spaces that allow fans to briefly forget about life’s realities and come together for a punk-rock show. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always follow the script.
In recent years, Armstrong has won the hearts of Green Day fans through various acts of kindness at live shows. For instance, he invited a disabled fan on stage to play ‘Knowledge’ with the band at London’s O2 Arena in 2016 and then gave the fan his guitar at the end of the concert. However, these acts of kindness pale in comparison to his heroic actions in San Francisco during the 1990s.
During a concert organized in support of Nimrod, Armstrong noticed a male fan with a mohawk behaving inappropriately towards a young and vulnerable girl. After confronting the man, the Green Day frontman decided to take matters into his own hands rather than relying on security to handle the situation.
After pausing the music, Armstrong took to the microphone to yell: “Hey, why don’t you come here, you little mohawked motherf*cker? You wanna fight? I’ll fight you right now. Come on, get up here on the stage.”
The frightened fan declined Armstrong’s offer to join him on stage for a fight, and the Green Day singer then jumped into the crowd to hand out a beating. After justice was served, bassist Mike Dirnt said: “Sorry, but these people didn’t come here to put up with your shit,” which was met by applause by the crowd.
