Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt.
Golly. Clear Channel threw a concert (9/21/12) to promote their internet radio platform, iHeartRadio, and just as Green Day was starting a song – well, stopping a song in the middle and starting another – a monitor flashed a warning that they had one minute left.
Lead singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong seemed annoyed. He remarked, and I paraphrase: “Give me a freaking break! One minute left. One minute frazzling left. You’re gonna give me freewheeling one minute? Look at that fracking sign right there. One minute. Let me flinging tell you something. Let me tell you something. I’ve been around since fizzing 1980 fluffing 8 and you’re going to give me one flamethrowing minute? You gotta be flaking kidding me. Foofaraw! I’m not flaring Justin Bieber, you deep-fryers,” Armstrong shouted. “Let me show you what one minute fricasseeing means.” The audience hollered cheerfully.
Then there was guitar-smashing. The audience roared. Armstrong stomped off. The audience chanted “Green Day! Green Day! Green Day!” Instead Rihanna was next.
Clear Channel cleverly declared the moment a brilliant success. “If anybody goes long on a set, we really don’t care,” Clear Channel entertainment president John Sykes told Billboard. “We thought it was a great move and we were along for the joke.” Corporate chuckles on all sides. “But all in all, it was the essence of rock ‘n’ roll and rebellion and smashing his beautiful guitar, like Pete Townshend did and Jimi Hendrix. We just thought it was a great moment for the show.”
He’s not wrong. It’s interesting to watch, and it got the concert lots of publicity, and it wasn’t Sykes’ guitar that got smashed. His beautiful guitar. (Somehow, that’s the word that sounds… unscripted. That carries a note of… reproof. Your beautiful guitar.)
The band issued an apology on Facebook. “Billie Joe is seeking treatment for substance abuse. We would like everyone to know that our set was not cut short by Clear Channel and to apologize to those we offended at the iHeartRadio Festival in Las Vegas. We regretfully must postpone some of our upcoming promotional appearances.”
Usually “to those who were offended” apologies are suspect, because they suggest that people who complained should not have been offended. (“We apologize to any prudes, haters, or politically-correct whiners who took offense….”) But did anyone complain here? The audience didn’t seem offended. My counter-neighbors at the oyster bar, whose Green Day tickets were canceled, weren’t offended. Reports are that Justin Bieber isn’t offended. (Admittedly, these aren’t first-hand reports. Maybe Bieber is secretly offended. Possibly Bieber is even now in seclusion somewhere, smashing his piano. His beautiful piano.)
The statement specifically says that Clear Channel did not cut the band short. (Who did? Unnamed promoters? A rogue technocrat who sneaked in and programmed that fracking sign? Rihanna?) Maybe, even though John Sykes professed delight with the rock-n-rollingness of smashing the (beautiful) guitar, the band is worried that Clear Channel, that insanely powerful radio octopus, might actually contain people who are annoyed, and who might demonstrate their annoyance in ways harmful to the band’s continuing success. Clear Channel is the largest radio station owner in the country (and the biggest concert promoter), and it’s helpful to a band if they actually play your music.
Since Clear Channel is officially Not Upset, Actually Quite Amused, the band can’t officially apologize to them. But the band wants everyone to know they’re still friends with Clear Channel.
I don’t know, maybe some people complained to Green Day about uncalled-for f-bombs, and maybe the apology is for them. But I think it’s a dog-whistle apology, meant to be heard by a certain group.
“We told everyone it wasn’t your fault. Billie Joe is in rehab. We know how to be professional! DON’T BE MAD AT US!”
