Green Day treated fans to an energetic performance at the NHL All-Star Game on Saturday night in St. Louis, with the a few of singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s expletives during the set slipping past the censors.
- READ MORE: Green Day: their 15 best songs – ranked
The band played a set outside the Enterprise Center prior to the game, before taking to stage for the second intermission of the All-Star Game.
Armstrong implored the crowd to “get your fucking hands up in the air!” during 1994 hit ‘Basket Case’, and later shouted “Let’s go f**king crazy!” during ‘American Idiot’. Watch a clip of the performance below.
? We are all melodramatic fools ? @GreenDay #NHLAllStar pic.twitter.com/QFMNuXSEVp
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) January 26, 2020
Although the expletives were muted by NBC’s censors, former Deadspin video director Timothy Burke reported that the lines passed through the secondary audio feed without censorship.
Green Day later tweeted about the incident, playfully asking “Anyone know why we’re trending?”
Anyone know why we’re trending? We’ve been busy having a blast w the @NHL in St. Louis all night.
— Green Day (@GreenDay) January 26, 2020
Fans were generally amused by the controversy, with some suggesting that Armstrong’s swearing shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the broadcasters.
You can’t expect a band who has an album called Father of All Motherfuckers coming out to not curse on live TV#greenday #NHLAllStarWeekend pic.twitter.com/3BJL5eCCci
— Riley G (@Riley_G11) January 26, 2020
Live look at Gary Bettman, NHL/NBC/Sportsnet exec's hearing Billie Joe Armstrong drop half a dozen f-bombs on national TV at #NHLAllStarWeekend #greenday pic.twitter.com/hZvxUaqeP2
— Derek Gray (@Graysheep21) January 26, 2020
I was a @GreenDay fan but now I'm a FUCKING #GreenDay fan ??? pic.twitter.com/qTvg2x1Cnq
— TampaSportsGirl (@TampaSportsGirl) January 26, 2020
Earlier this month (January 16), Green Day announced that they will donate royalties from their latest track to sexual assault charities, after it sampled a Joan Jett track that was originally written by Gary Glitter.
The chorus to ‘Oh Yeah!’ hears the punk band sample Jett’s 1980 version of ‘Do You Wanna Touch Me’, which was first performed by the shamed musician in 1973.
Posting on Twitter, Green Day confirmed that all proceeds from the track would go straight to the International Justice Mission and RAINN, two charities that work with victims of sexual offences.