The biggest football game of the year also happens to be, for many, the biggest concert of the year.
Megastar Bad Bunny will headline the halftime show on Sunday. And Green Day will kick off the music portion of the Super Bowl with a performance at the game’s opening ceremony.
Here & Now‘s Scott Tong spoke with Atlantic staff writer Spencer Kornhaber about what to expect from the band, both musically and politically.
3 questions with Spencer Kornhaber
Green Day originally came out of the punk anti-establishment scene. Now, they’re going to do the most establishment concert at the 50-yard line. How would you describe who they are now?
“They’re basically classic rock at this point. They’ve become a great American institution and really one of the last rock bands who everyone knows, who everyone can sing along with. We’ve been producing fewer and fewer big stadium-uniting rock bands over the past few decades, and Green Day is really one of the last ones. And they came from very scrappy roots, but now they can basically play anywhere. And a lot of the people are going to know what their songs are.
To the politics here. Many of us remember Green Day’s critique of the Bush administration, 2004 and the Iraq war, when it came out with the song “American Idiot.” And then when Donald Trump came on to the political scene, the lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong changed the lyrics to “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda.” The president has signaled his displeasure with Green Day. What are you expecting, the band, the singer to say or not say at the Super Bowl?
“I think we’re going to get a taste of some of that energy. I don’t know if he’s going to go all the way to calling out MAGA, though, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. But this has been a long running tradition in their career of using stage opportunities to create a sense of surprise, to say something that’s a little bit off beat and to offend people. That’s happened a number of times, not only regarding music, but there have been a few onstage tantrums. So, I think Billie Joe is willing to kind of go there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he said something about what’s happening in Minneapolis or elsewhere in the world.”
Is music at the Super Bowl more political than it’s been in the past? I mean, there’s Green Day and then, of course, Bad Bunny, who has been criticized by members of the administration. At the Grammys this past weekend, he said “ICE out” during his acceptance speech.
“It does feel pretty political this year, but that might just be because music is always a somewhat political art form. You know, Bad Bunny is the most popular musician in the world, hands down, for years running now. So, it’s not a political decision necessarily to book him at the biggest concert in America. Green Day, as I said, is one of the most reliable rock bands we have. Their most recent album, their 14th album, scored a number one hit at Rock Radio just a couple of years ago. So, booking them just seems like a smart business. And as it turns out, when people sing about their lives and the world they live in, that inevitably ends up being a little political.
This interview was lightly edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this segment for broadcast with Micaela Rodríguez. Michael Scotto adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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