Awesome / Green Day

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• Green Day was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame their first year of eligibility, something only a handful of inductees get these days.
  • Their whole Acceptance Speech could be considered as one Moment of Awesome. With Tre enumerate his favourite Drummers; Mike thanking the Ford Motor Company for building reliable cars to get them through the gigs and Billie Joe apologizing to their manager for Tre's drum sets catching fire and all the smashed hotel rooms
• Behold, the most ultimate example of Audience Participation in the book.
  • Just imagine being one of the three people that Billie Joe chose to come onstage and play with him...
  • Imagine being the guy that Billie Joe kissed.
• An instance where they invite a KID onstage to play guitar in "Jesus of Suburbia".
  • Even more awesome was the fact that the crowd was essentially doubting him, and he nailed it.
• A 12-year old. Singing "Longview". Live onstage. And absolutely rocking it. Not only does he absolutely barrel through the lines with his vocal delivery, but he conducts a chant with the crowd. You could see how impressed Billie Joe was.
• Music video example: the band's slow-mo, straight-faced Unflinching Walk through the hectic crowd of a party in the "Kill the DJ" video.
• This...rather eccentric performance of "St. Jimmy" during the American Idiot musical...by Billie Joe himself.
• Billie Joe stopping during a live performance of "Homecoming" and calling out someone who was giving some kids in the audience a rough time.
  • On a similar note, him calling out a guy who was harassing a girl in the audience. He then takes off his guitar, jumps from the stage, and dropkicks the guy!
• "This song is not anti-American! It's anti...WAAAAAAR!"
• Admit it, that police cruiser spiraling through the air in the "Walking Contradiction" video was pretty cool-looking, especially with all the different angles it was shot at (including first-person!).
• When a school in Mississippi cancelled the prom because a lesbian couple were going to attend, Green Day decided to hold their own prom for the school.
• The Woodstock '94 mud fight that will forever live in infamy of the most amazing order.
• On the 21st Century Breakdown tour, Billie Joe shared a little story with his audience about how he beat up someone for telling him that Green Day sucks. Not only that, he had been in the middle of an argument with his wife and promptly apologized to her after beating the guy up.
• Billie Joe falls offstage mid-song. However, he is rapidly lifted back onto the stage from both fans and security guards and continues the song as if nothing had happened.
• Mike accidentally hits himself in the face with his bass during "She" and breaks his nose. That doesn't stop him from continuing playing the song and he searched for medical help AFTER finishing it. Billie then had to continue finishing the set acoustic.
• Whenever Billie Joe performs a "deliverance" while playing "East Jesus Nowhere" live. See here.
• The shot in the "Wake Me Up When September Ends" video of the band playing in slow-motion while sparks rain down in the background.
• Right in the middle of performing "Bang Bang" at the American Music Awards, Billie Joe starts chanting MDC's "NO TRUMP! NO KKK! NO FASCIST USA!" lyric repeatedly, in light of the fact that the already deeply unpopular Donald Trump had been elected president. The audience in the auditorium gave them a standing ovation afterwards.
• The band doing a garage-style performance on Facebook Live to raise money for victims of Hurricane Harvey. In the end over $100,000 was raised, and we got to hear Green Day bust out classics from "39/Smooth" and "Kerplunk".

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