Green Day have mocked the United States’ Vice President JD Vance during a recent concert in Australia.
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At the band’s recent concert in Melbourne, Australia on March 1, Green Day hit out at JD Vance, who is currently serving as President Donald Trump‘s second-in-command. For the concert, the band performed the seminal ‘Dookie’ and ‘American Idiot’ albums in full.
During the ‘American Idiot’ portion of the set, Billie Joe Armstrong and co. first called out Donald Trump’s administration during the title song, swapping out the lyric “I’m not a part of the redneck agenda” to “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda“. The band have done this numerous times, dating back to late 2023.
However, the March 1 gig in Melbourne saw them whip out a new lyric change, this time taking aim at Vice President JD Vance. While performing ‘Jesus of Suburbia’, Green Day switched the lyrics from “Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?” to “Am I retarded or am I just JD Vance?”.
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Elsewhere during the same song, Green Day expressed their support for Ukraine, singing “We are the kids of war and peace/From Ukraine to the Middle East” instead of the original “We are the kids of war and peace/From Anaheim to the Middle East.”
Later on, Armstrong took more jabs at Donald Trump and Elon Musk, asking the Australian audience: “Don’t you want Elon Musk to shut the fuck up? Don’t you want Donald Trump to shut the fuck up?”
Check out a clip of the moment below.
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Check out the full performances of ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ from Green Day’s Melbourne concert below.
These are the first times that the band have thrown shade at Donald Trump. At the American Music Awards (AMA) in 2016, the legendary punk trio led a chant of “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” in protest against the then-President electoral candidate.
In August 2023, the band announced a limited-time sale of a t-shirt featuring Donald Trump‘s mugshot for charity. The t-shirt, titled Ultimate Nimrod, used Trump’s viral mugshot to recreate their iconic ‘Nimrod’ cover, with the album’s title covering Trump’s face.
In the lead-up to the 2024 US Presidential elections, Armstrong urgently encouraged fans to vote for Kamala Harris instead: “Vote for Harris. I think there’s probably a lot of things that people disagree with, but the one thing that we do agree on, is Trump has got to go and we need to turn the page.”
Elsewhere, Green Day have been forced to cancel the final Australian show of their tour due to the Tropical Cyclone Alfred. They announced that they had no choice but to call the show off due to the projected extreme weather conditions that are set to hit the Queensland area later this week.
Cyclone Alfred is expected to be the first such extreme storm to impact Queensland in more than 50 years, with wind speeds of up to 130km/h and expected rainfall of 450mm in the space of three days.
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