During Green Day’s set at Germany’s Hurricane Festival, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong confronted a fan in the crowd, reportedly threatening to “beat their ass” if they didn’t stop squirting him with a water gun.
The moment quickly gained traction on social media after Green Day Inc. shared a clip of the incident on TikTok (watch below).
The confrontation occurred during the band’s performance of “Jesus of Suburbia.” In the footage, Armstrong can be seen flipping off the fan mid-song while rallying the crowd with his signature “hey-oh” chant. He then slings off his guitar, steps away from the mic, and directly calls out the fan from the stage.
It’s difficult to decipher the entirety of Armstrong’s brief message, but he clearly mouths the words, “I’ll beat your ass. Do you understand me?”
The altercation only lasts about 15 seconds, after which Armstrong picks his guitar up and the band continues the song.
Billie Joe Armstrong Has a History of Fighting Audience Members
The Hurricane Festival incident was a particularly tense moment for fans who remember Armstrong’s history of brawling with audience members. Green Day’s Woodstock ’94 set famously devolved into an enormous mud fight, with festival-goers storming the stage after they finished playing and a security guard accidentally tackling bassist Mike Dirnt and knocking out several of his teeth.
Armstrong took it one step further during a December 1997 performance at the Fillmore in San Francisco. “Hey, why don’t you come here, you little mohawk motherfucker?” he told a fan that was evidently causing problems on the floor. “You wanna come up here and fight? I’ll fight you right now. Come on, get up on the stage.” The frontman then threw his guitar down and dove feet-first into the audience to fight the audience member himself.
Watch Billie Joe Armstrong Fight a Fan During 1997 Green Day Show
