A lot of people seem to be confused on why Billie Joe Armstrong would throw a temper tantrum on stage in front of thousands of people, at a major festival like IHeartRadio (which seems to be a festival full of mainstream acts). Here is my take on what set Billie Joe into a rage. Okay, here we go…
I believe that Usher’s set was before Green Day, and Usher’s set might of went a little over time, which is probably the big reason that forced Green Day’s set to be cut short. If you look at this scheduling, Green Day was originally booked to perform a 45 minute set. I’m sure the festival organizers would have let Green Day perform their full set, but considering that Rihanna was the big headliner that night they were on, Rihanna was after Green Day, they were in a big hurry to get Rihanna on ’cause the MGM Grand were full of Rihanna fans.
Those comments that Billie Joe made, “I’ve been around since 1988”, and “I’m not fucking Justin Bieber, you motherfuckers”. I can completely understand where he’s coming from. Green Day has been making music and selling lots of records since the late ’80’s. Green Day has been around longer than most of the acts on that bill that day (well except for Bon Jovi, who has been around longer than Green Day). When he says, he’s not “Justin Bieber”, I think what he meant by that is that his band were being treated like kids. If Justin Bieber performed that night and if Bieber’s set went over time, they would have let Bieber finish his set. The festival acted like Green Day were nothing. They acted like the band was nothing important. Sure, Green Day may be as pop as Justin Bieber, but I don’t think that’s what Billie Joe meant. What I think he meant is that Billie Joe knows that the US does not like Justin Bieber too much, he just didn’t want people treating Green Day the same way. He felt like the festival was comparing him to Justin Bieber.
The band felt that they were being treated unfairly. Today is not a good time for Green Day to be playing music still ’cause they’ll always be looked at as a pop band and they should have hung it up after their album “Dookie”. “Dookie” was the only good album they did ’cause it was a true punk record.
I can understand why the band would get mad though ’cause no band likes their set getting cut short and they don’t like getting controlled by the media. That’s what it is, Green Day getting controlled by mainstream music and pop culture. It bothered them. That’s why it set Green Day off. Just my 2cents on this.
Kev
K'Brocking 
I think you hit the nail here. I am happy you can put it into words because many articles take it out of contexts and watching just one minute of the whole thing doesn’t help to udnerstand that oit was not just one thing it was the mixture of many several little details like the little embracing by the crowd that didn’t help. Usher, I think I read, took over 25 minutes.
Another thing you explain and I hadn’t heard anyone is that Usher played before them so the cut to make time to Rihanna was not to give her extra time (many articles give the impression Green day was cut first to make extra time for these two, but basically going by what you said they were tryting to rescue as much time as possible from being taken away from Rihanna’s performance.
Thank you for this explanation.
I think he’s just a drunk now. The outburst would’ve been cool and totally in the vein of punk if not for one thing. He kept saying “I.” Like “I’ve been around since 88, I’m not Beiber.” If he had said “WE” and made it a band thing, that would be cool. But he made it about himself so I lost respect for him. I think he’s just drunk and his band is embarrassed by this.
Actually, I lost my respect for Green Day ever since they stopped being Green Day. They’re a pop band now. I think I lost my respect for them after I heard one of their most overplayed songs on the radio which that song is, “Time of Your Life”, that acoustic song. They’re not a good band anymore, anyway. I used to like them though.
Kev
It must be tough to be a punk band when punk is dead.
I agree. It’s actually tough for rock music to be around in today’s mainstream industry. Most rock bands are becoming pop bands these days: Nickelback, Aerosmith, U2, etc. He does bring up valid points about today’s industry though.
Kev
True dat man.