GREEN DAY LED a furious chant against President-elect Donald Trump last night at the American Music Awards.
On a stage full of pyrotechnics, Green Day turned the punk rockers’ recent song “Bang Bang” into an anti-Trump anthem at the awards ceremony broadcast live on US television.
“No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!” Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong shouted repeatedly, to smiles from the star-studded audience in Los Angeles and quick commentary on social media.
Green Day, who led a revival of punk rock in the early 1990s, repeatedly denounced Trump during the election campaign in which the Republican ran on staunch criticism of immigrants.
Well before the election, Trump wrote on Twitter in 2010 that he saw Green Day’s Broadway musical “American Idiot” with his wife Melania and found it “excellent.”
skip to 2:15 in the video to hear the band’s anti-Trump comments.
Sting, presented with a lifetime achievement award, performed a medley from Police classics “Message in a Bottle” and “Every Breath You Take” to a song off his new album.
The “Englishman in New York” made what may have been a veiled reference to the political climate as he described rock ‘n’ roll as “perhaps America’s greatest and most influential export.”
Rock music has been “always open to all colours in the spirit of welcome and inclusion,” Sting said.
“A mixing of culture, of rhythm and passion is what made this country the greatest country in the world.”
John Legend and Lady Gaga, two US artists who have been outspoken in their denunciations of Trump, steered clear of politics as they performed new singles.
But award co-hosts Jay Pharoah — a comedian from “Saturday Night Live” — and model Gigi Hadid made multiple cracks on the president-elect.
Pharoah said Trump must have enjoyed performer Bruno Mars, the Hawaiian-born star whose heritage includes Puerto Rican and Filipino roots.
“‘I love Bruno Mars. I don’t know what colour he is, so I can’t deport him,’” Pharoah said, imitating Trump’s booming voice.
Earlier in the week, Donald Trump tweeted that Saturday Night Live was “totally one-sided” and “biased”, but has yet to comment on Green Day’s performance.
With reporting from Sean Murray
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