Posted on: September 22, 2024, 02:18h.
Last updated on: September 22, 2024, 02:24h.
It’s easy to figure out what’s behind the hatred Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong expressed for Las Vegas on Friday night when you consider where he said it. The singer was standing on a stage erected in a San Francisco baseball stadium. It was Oracle Park, not the Oakland Coliseum, but you get the idea.
Armstrong grew up worshipping the Oakland A’s and, like millions of the team’s fans, is enraged that billionaire owner John Fisher has decided to thumb his nose at the ballclub’s 56-year history in the East Bay just to build a cheaper new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. (OK, so maybe it’s more like the team’s tens of thousands of fans, judging from its lackluster attendance in recent years.)
“We don’t take shit from people like fucking John Fisher,” the “Dookie” singer huffed as the sold-out crowd of 42,000 cheered. “I hate Las Vegas! It’s the worst shithole in America!”
When Armstrong, drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt took the stage at the home of the San Francisco Giants, it was immediately clear from the thunderous applause that the members were everybody’s hometown heroes in a town sorely in need of new ones.
Vegas Vitriol
Things haven’t always gone so great for Green Day in Sin City.
On Sept. 21, 2012, during his band’s set at the pop-oriented iHeartRadio Music Festival, Armstrong halted the band’s 1994 hit “Basket Case” to throw a conniption fit. He smashed his guitar and stormed off stage early when confronted with a blinking sign warning him that the band’s allotted time was drawing to a close.
“Fuck this shit!” Armstrong screamed. “I’ve been around since 19-fucking-88. And you’re gonna give me one fucking minute? I’m not fucking Justin Bieber, you motherfuckers. You gotta be fuckin’ joking!”
The band issued a statement apologizing for that incident and, not uncoincidentally, Armstrong reportedly entered a rehab facility shortly thereafter.
Still, that could have happened anywhere. And Green Day seemed to have had a great time during their last visit to Las Vegas — for the When We Were Young Festival on Oct. 22, 2023, which included a surprise show at the intimate Fremont County Club three days earlier.
All this may become irrelevant, however, as Armstrong may need to switch the target of his vitriol to Sacramento, Calif.
That’s where the A’s are now committed to play through the 2027 season, and where they may end up permanently resettling if the Las Vegas deal falls through. A growing chorus of industry insiders suspect that this is a good possibility, since Fisher has shown no real plan for how to finance his proposed $1.5 billion stadium on the Tropicana site, and is reportedly reticent to invest any of his own money.
