Green Day calls on fans to ‘fight back’ against Trump and Musk at Download 2025
Green Day made headlines during their set at the Download festival in Donnington Park in the UK on Friday, June 13, 2025. Besides the show being a momentous occasion for the band, as it's their first-ever set at the Download Festival, the band's frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, also made some headlines for what he said onstage.
The singer called out US President Donald Trump during their set, telling the Download crowd to "fight back." He said:
"Donald Trump and his administration is a fanciest government and it's up to us to fight back."
Trump wasn't the only one the singer called out mid-performance at the Download Festival. Green Day also changed the lyrics to their song, American Idiot, to take a shot at SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Armstrong tweaked the lyrics to sing:
"I'm not a part of the Elon agenda."
Another video from their set, in which Armstrong started a crowd chant to take a dig at Trump, also started circulating online. In the video shared by the fan account Green Day Italy on X, Armstrong can be heard telling the crowd to sing along with tweaked lyrics to call Trump a "fat b**tard."
It wasn't the first time the Green Day frontman made his opinions about Donald Trump and his administration known. On June 8, he posted a video of the LA protest on his Instagram Stories, per Billboard, and captioned it with a middle finger and an ice cube emoji.
Meanwhile, the band's song, F**k Off, plays as he shows solidarity towards the protestors rallying against the US ICE raids in the city.
Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong pays tribute to the late Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys
News of the death of Brian Wilson, the legendary co-founder of The Beach Boys, came out on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, as his family confirmed his passing in an Instagram post. He was 82 years old.
As the music scene mourned the iconic musician's death, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong also paid tribute to the late Wilson.
On June 12, Armstrong took to Instagram to share his rendition of The Beach Boys' 1964 hit, I Get Around.
He thanked Brian Wilson in the caption and said that he recorded the cover a few years back, but he had never had the chance to share it with the fans. He also called the songs one of his "all time favorite songs ever."
In February 2005, Armstrong joined Wilson and a host of other musicians, including Stevie Wonder, Norah Jones, Tim McGraw, Alicia Keys, and more, to perform a cover of The Beatles' classic, Across the Universe.
The performance was a tribute to the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
Green Day will also be performing at the upcoming Riot Fest on September 19, 20, and 21, 2025, at Douglas Park in Chicago for its 20th anniversary.
Other performing acts scheduled for the 3-day event include The Beach Boys, Blink-182, The Hold Steady, Weezer, Jack White, and more.
Green Day was recently honored with their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The punk band was honored with the 2810th star at 6212 Hollywood Boulevard on May 1, 2025.
