The horrific fire in an artists’ collective in an Oakland warehouse earlier this month is hitting Billie Joe Armstrong hard, and the Green Day front man honoured the victims of the tragedy during the band’s Saturday night show in Oakland.
“My heart just goes out to all the people who perished in that warehouse,” Armstrong told the crowd at the show, reports The Mercury News, addressing the incident in which 36 people lost their lives when a fire broke out in the Ghost Ship warehouse/artists’ collective.
The victims, he said, were “just trying to have a moment where they can all just celebrate just being artists and being weird and having fun,” and stressed the importance of a place where artists can feel that they’re part of a community.
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“People need a place,” he said before dedicating the band’s hit “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to the victims. “They didn’t go to art school. They got kicked out of their parents’ house. And they have nothing. But they find something in this sort of community. It’s really important that these people have an affordable place to live.”
Prior to the show, Armstrong — an Oakland native — has been addressing the tragedy on social media, pointing out that he once lived in a similar community. “Those were some of the best and most fulfilling times in my life. living with other weirdos, artists, activists, and musicians,” he writes. “Spaces like this allow the strange ones to thrive and be the people that normal society rejects. We inspired each other, laughed together, and created new friends and family we didn’t know existed. The city of Oakland provided that for me and my closest friends.”
