“From the bottom of our hearts, we love you Los Angeles,” Billie Joe Armstrong told the crowd, “and we’ve got your back no matter what”
Green Day kicked off FireAid, a pair of all-star benefit concerts taking place at the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome in Los Angeles to fund fire relief efforts across the city. The band started things with the American Idiot deep cut “Last Night on Earth” and welcomed special guest Billie Eilish to perform onstage with them. “I’m here to honor you,” they sang, “If I lose everything in the fire/I’m sendin’ all my love to you.”
Armstrong has been a fan of Eilish since the beginning of her career. “I always gravitate toward music that sounds like freedom,” he told her when they meet up for a Rolling Stone Musicians on Musicians interview in 2019. “And that’s what I get from your music. It’s like an earnest person that’s expressing themselves and incorporating new sounds. Some of it sounds like jazz to me, if that’s cool to say?”
Eilish left the stage after “Last Night on Earth,” and Armstrong addressed the audience. “Los Angeles,” he roared. “We are still alive! This is California. And we’re all in this together. From the bottom of our hearts, we love you Los Angeles and we’ve got your back no matter what.”
Green Day continued their set with “Still Breathing” from their 2016 LP Revolution Radio. It’s not of their better-known songs, but the lyrics (“I’m like a soldier coming home for the first time/I dodged a bullet, and I walked across a landmine/I’m still alive”) were perfect for the occasion. They wrapped up with their 1994 classic “When I Come Around.”
Other performers slated for the benefit include Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jelly Roll and Peso Pluma. The live shows are streaming live at select AMC Theaters, iHeartRadio, Apple Music, Netflix, Paramount+, Prime Video, Max, SiriusXM, SoundCloud, Veeps and YouTube.
