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Green Day is in the news and it’s not because it is the last day of September and everyone is clamoring to wake them up when September ends, it’s because punk band from the San Francisco Bay Area has been banned from multiple radio stations in Las Vegas after Billie Joe Armstrong called Sin City “the worst s— hole in America.”
The comments came a few days ago when Green Day performed across the Bay from the Oakland Coliseum at San Francisco’s Oracle Park as part of the West Coast leg of their Saviors Tour. The timing overlapped with the Oakland A’s final stretch at the Coliseum before moving to Sacramento for three seasons where the A’s will play in suffocatingly hot conditions in the Summer and then move to Las Vegas where the team doesn’t have a stadium lined up, a location for a stadium, or even a deal for the space to put a stadium.
Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong called out Oakland A’s owner John Fisher who just might be the most hated man in baseball these days, possibly in all of professional sports. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong said on stage “we don’t take s— from people like f—— John Fisher…. I hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst s— hole in America.”
Those comments, understandably so, did not sit well with people in Las Vegas including radio stations X 107.5 and KOMP 92.3, both of which have banned Green Day from being played on the air in Las Vegas:
While your first inclination might be to say ‘who listens to FM radio instead of satellite radio or Spotify?’ the reality is that an astounding 91% of all Americans listen to AM/FM radio on a monthly basis.
In a statement published on their website, X 107.5 Las Vegas wrote “Well, Sin City heard him loud and clear—and X107.5 is not having it. In response to Armstrong’s inflammatory comments, the station is banning all Green Day music, effective immediately. Considering he played a pop-up show at Fremont Country Club last year, we’re surprised at his comments. The show was spectacular! But now, Armstrong has crossed a line with Las Vegas locals.”
Taking two steps back, what I’ve come to realize is this furor pointed at Green Day over Billie Joe Armstrong’s comments is entirely the result of Las Vegas having no city other than maybe Reno that it’s a rival with.
You don’t see Boston and NYC banning artists over trashing each other. Nobody from New York takes New Jersey seriously when Garden Staters try and convince people Jersey is better in the tiniest ways possible.
Everyone in the Northeast has accepted that Philly is ready to come to fisticuffs at any moment over any besmirching of the City of Brotherly Love but they wouldn’t ban Green Day for comments. And Chicago is just happy that cities in the Northeast remember it exists, they’d never ban anyone from performing because they’d just be happy for the attention.
Las Vegas needs a rival city more substantial than Reno. Los Angeles is way out of Vegas’s league so that will never work but they need another city that’s part of the cultural zeitgeist to take shots at so they don’t get so worked up anytime someone says something negative about a city in the middle of the desert that’s a monument to man’s arrogance. A city I LOVE, to be sure, but Las Vegas hit 120 degrees earlier this Summer and has seen over 100 days this year with temperatures over 100 degrees.
Maybe don’t be so offended that a guy who grew up in Northern California where the Bay Area fog can make it cold any day of the year doesn’t like your scorching hot city? Maybe donate to a local cause anytime Green Day gets played instead of banning a band that people want to hear? Thicken that skin up. Ultimately, these are just my thoughts and I love a good regional feud but it seems silly to get worked up over this and ban them from the radio just to gain attention.
And now that September is over…