Green Day experienced an unexpected pause at their Saviors Tour concert Wednesday night (Sept. 4) at Comerica Park in Detroit.
The group abruptly ran offstage just as it began the bridge of “Longview,” as the crowd continued singing the song in the band’s absence. Reliable sources on site confirmed to Billboard that an unauthorized drone had been spotted hovering within sight of the stage before their sudden exit. Billboard was told that security spotted the drone and pulled the band offstage.
No explanation was immediately given to the crowd, but after a few minutes, a message on the video screen announced “Show Pause. Please standby for details.”
The group returned after about 10 minutes and resumed the song. “How you doing?” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong asked the crowd of just under 41,000 fans. “We’re gonna pick up where we left off.” He then asked fans to put away their cell phones: “Pull ’em out later. Let’s be here right now.”
After a furious “Welcome to Paradise,” Armstrong declared, “Ain’t no motherf—er that’s gonna stop us, I’ll tell you that.”
The Saviors Tour — titled after the group’s 14th studio album Saviors, which arrived in January atop seven Billboard charts, including Top Album Sales and Top Rock Albums — kicked off in Spain in May before arriving Stateside at the end of July. Green Day are supported by The Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and The Linda Lindas on most North American dates, as they were Wednesday night in Detroit.
The tour is celebrating the 20th and 30th anniversaries of the landmark Green Day albums American Idiot and Dookie, respectively, and the band is playing both albums in their entirety on each date of the tour.