Green Day avoided making a major political statement during their energetic set to kick off Super Bowl 60.
Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool took the stage at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, during the Sunday, February 8, opening ceremony. The band played their songs “Holiday,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “American Idiot,” and while the latter certainly has plenty to say socially and politically, the group let the lyrics speak for themselves.
“Welcome to The Bay! It’s Super Bowl 60!” Armstrong, 53, yelled as he was joined onstage by a group of former Super Bowl MVPs, including Tom Brady, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana.
The relatively tame performance was in opposition of Green Day’s appearance at a concert in San Francisco on Friday, February 6. “This goes out to all the ICE agents out there. Wherever you are: quit your shitty-ass job. Quit that shitty job you have,” Armstrong said on stage.
Green Day’s performance celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Super Bowl and MVPs from throughout the big game’s history before the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots faced off on the field. The gig was especially meaningful for the musicians, since the band was formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1987.
“We are super hyped to open Super Bowl 60 right in our backyard!” Armstrong, 53, said in a January statement. “We are honored to welcome the MVPs who’ve shaped the game and open the night for fans all over the world. Let’s have fun! Let’s get loud!”
“Celebrating 60 years of Super Bowl history with Green Day as a hometown band, while honoring the NFL legends who’ve helped define this sport, is an incredibly powerful way to kick off Super Bowl LX,” added Tim Tubito, the NFL’s senior director of event and game presentation. “As we work alongside NBC Sports for this opening ceremony, we look forward to creating a collective celebration for fans in the stadium and around the world.”
Green Day is known for being politically outspoken, with the band’s members making their feelings on a variety of hot-button issues very clear in their music, performances and public statements.
“F*** America,” Armstrong told the audience during a June 2022 London concert after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which ended the constitutional right to abortion care. “I’m f***ing renouncing my citizenship. I’m f***ing coming here.”
He added at the time, “There’s too much f***ing stupid in the world to go back to that miserable f***ing excuse for a country.”
Armstrong later opened up about addressing the United States’ volatile political climate on Green Day’s 2024 album, Saviors.
“Our politics are so divided and polarized right now,” he told Vulture in January 2023, before addressing the January 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s Capitol and high poverty rates. “We had an insurrection. We have homeless people in the street. We have so many issues, and they come onto your algorithm feed at such a pace. It just stresses you out, the anxiety of being an American and how it becomes so overwhelming.”
Green Day has been particularly opposed to President Donald Trump before and throughout his time in office. In 2016, the group changed the lyrics to their song “Bang Bang” to chant, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” at the American Music Awards. Green Day also frequently includes the revised line, “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda,” during live performances of their hit “American Idiot.”
In January, Trump, 79, revealed his plans to boycott the 2026 Super Bowl due to Green Day and Bad Bunny’s inclusion in the game day entertainment.
“I’m anti-them,” he told The New York Post at the time. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
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