Green Day Makes The List

Despite the fact that Green Day was put on a list of suggested artists that shouldn’t perform at Carson, Calif.’s Home Depot Center, the rockers are scheduled to play two nights in October. One show is already sold out.

A concert committee made up of venue representatives, the community and California State University, Dominguez Hills (where the Home Depot Center is located), were expected to make a final decision at press time on whether Green Day would be allowed to play the 27,000-capacity stadium.

Apparently, the “list” was compiled about three years ago by center operator Anschutz Entertainment Group and university officials who were trying to appease worried neighbors still traumatized from a 1990 Grateful Dead concert at the now-demolished Olympic Velodrome. The list names acts including Marilyn Manson and rapper Ice Cube.

“In the early negotiations with [CSU Dominguez Hills], it was a way to reassure them that we were going to be responsible with the concerts we booked,” Home Depot Center GM Bill Peterson told Pollstar. “So, we created this opportunity with this list as a guideline to assist in the process of us booking concerts.”

Peterson added that the list is not absolute; it just recommends acts that should be questioned. He also pointed out that no artist has ever been banned from playing the venue.

How Green Day got on the list in the first place remains a mystery. AEG spokesman Michael Roth has a theory that the band was singled out while touring with Lollapalooza in the ’90s. Putting Green Day on the list would therefore prohibit the traveling festival from visiting the venue.

“If you look at the list, Eminem is on it but so is Slim Shady,” Roth told Pollstar. “I think they were just throwing out names they’d heard of that they wouldn’t want playing in their neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, neither Roth nor Peterson is worried the concert committee will deny Green Day from playing the October 8-9 gigs. But what if the committee does decide to cancel?

“I think we’d have to circle back and re-evaluate that,” Peterson said. “We’re really not expecting an issue. Right now, we’re not really contemplating that.”