Green Day‘s Billie Armstrong has opened up about the emotion he felt on the band’s first night of the Hella Mega Tour with Fall Out Boy and Weezer. In an interview with Kerrang!, he said, “The crowd looked like this giant flock of birds freaking out,” Armstrong said of their first tour date. Coming offstage, afterwards, no-one could believe what was happening with this shared experience for all of us. And it was like that every single night. People were just grateful to be alive, to be around people again. It was awesome. We wanted to make it a special tour back in 2019, but when it ended up happening it was an unbelievable experience.”

He continued, “We sound-checked the day before and I was so overwhelmed by the size of the place – it was like the first time I ever played a stadium in my life… Everyone – the crew, every single person – was completely overwhelmed because no-one knew how this was going to go down. I was freaking out. Everyone was. We didn’t know what to think… the whole country had been through the f*cking wringer. And here we are starting in f*cking Texas.”