After a delay in one of the recent Green Day shows, the band asked their fans to put their phones away.
The band got off the stage after realizing an unauthorized drone hovering over them. Green Day returned ten minutes later to finish their song ‘Longview.’ Armstrong then asked fans to put away their phones. “Pull ’em out later. Let’s be here right now,” he said.
“Ain’t no motherf*cker that’s gonna stop us, I’ll tell you that,” Armstrong later addressed the interruption.
While they didn’t go into details about what happened during the show, the band has since shared a statement on their Instagram story explaining the situation. The band wrote that the stadium security had them clear the stage while they dealt with a ‘potential safety issue.’
Along with Armstrong, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan also defends the banning of phones during the shows.
The frontman talked about how frustrating it is when people pull out their phones to record the performance. “It’s rude,” he explained when asked why he bans phones at live shows. “Not to us, I mean, I just did a whole photoshoot. I’m not afraid of cameras and I’m not afraid of phones. I’ve got mine right here. It’s a very useful tool.”
“There’s no way you can actually capture what’s happening in that live moment on a phone. You’re missing the opportunity of actually absorbing in real time what’s happening. The art of storytelling. Being able to actually recount what you saw without having to record it,” Keenan added.
Green Day is continuing their tour with a show in Denver, Colorado on September 7. The ‘Saviours Tour’ is wrapping up in Yokohama Japan on February 26.