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Green Day has again infamously climbed the pedestal of making the headlines for controversial reasons. The American rock band that last made rounds on the Internet for branding former President Donald Trump an “idiot” at a July concert in Washington DC has now been banned by a pair of local radio stations in Las Vegas following a concert on September 20.
Why local Las Vegas radio stations banned Green Day music?
The band’s frontman Billie Joe Armstrong – often fronting such impassioned stunts – launched a verbal onslaught against Sin City over displeasure about his beloved MLB team Oakland A’s being taken away from the Bay Area. The once-diehard fan of the A’s, an Oakland native himself, directed his furious rants at the team’s owner, John Fisher, for executing the switch.
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“We don’t take sh*t from people like f***ing John Fisher… I hate Las Vegas,” Armstrong said at a San Francisco gig in late September. He also called the Gambling Capital of the World “the worst sh*thole in America.”
Billie Joe Armstrong also vandalised the popular MLB team’s logo
The punk artist’s verbal hate train at the music show aligned with his previous actions of vandalising the team’s logo during a Canadian tour stop. In August, he recorded himself doing the deed in the clubhouse at the Roger Center, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Billie posted the clip on his social media profile, showing himself spray painting a ‘B’ over the ‘A’ of the Athletics logo.
Vegas radios condemn Green Day and its frontman
Armstrong’s latest rant in San Francisco ultimately landed Green Day’s music in trouble with a pair of Las Vegas radio stations. In a heated response of extending their solidarity to the US city, two Vegas stations – KOMP 92.3 and X107.5 – condemned the act.
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“No more Green Day,” KOMP 92.3 wrote on Instagram, as they announced that “any and all” tracks of the band had been pulled off their playlists. “It’s not us, Billie… it’s you,” the station captioned the post with ‘#vegas4ever.’
Similarly, X107.5 issued a statement against the music act on their website. “In response to Armstrong’s inflammatory comments,” the website read, “the station is banning all Green Day music, effective immediately.” They added, “Sin City heard him loud and clear—and X107.5 is not having it.”
Although the Vegas station called Armstrong out for crossing a line with the city’s locals, numerous other Green Day fans and sports enthusiasts alike backed him up in the comments of ‘komprocks’ IG post.
“Not a huge Green Day fan, but as I sports fan I get it. He’s a bay kid that grew up in the Bay Area where the A’s are from, where the raiders were from. I don’t think he meant it as an actual diss to the city. Just sports talk that’s all. Could he had said it a different way? Yes. But where’s the fun in that? lol,” someone wrote.
A second Insta user commented, “Green Day doesn’t care that about 500 people won’t hear their music in their Ubers.” A third said, “I don’t like green day much, but to “cancel” them for speaking their opinion is wrong, just because you don’t agree.”
Days after unleashing his onstage tirade in San Francisco, Armstrong took to his IG profile to share how much his team’s switch to Vegas had hurt him.
His heartfelt post read: “Me playing in the sand with my Oakland A’s hat. Must be around 6 years old.. the athletics leaving Oakland is devastating. I feel for all the fans and the people that will lose their jobs because of greed.. 3 sports teams have left Oakland in the past 5 years Leaving a cultural hole in the east bay hearts and sport. I DO believe that Oakland will come back from this.. I’ll always remember driving to del Norte bart station taking the train to the games. Some of my favorite memories. My 4th grade teacher used to have the radio on in class so we can hear if Ricky Henderson was going to break the stolen base record. He did. Family friends crazy george Billy Ball..”
