Critic of Donald Trump
Green Day opens Super Bowl show
January 19, 2026 – 2:05 p.mReading time: 2 min.
Rapper Bad Bunny’s planned appearance at the Superbowl heated up emotions in the USA. Now the NFL is announcing who else will be at the sporting event.
This year’s Super Bowl isn’t just about sports. Musically, the National Football League (NFL) also relies on big names – and sparks discussions with its selection of artists.
The US punk rock band Green Day will perform the opening ceremony on February 8th in Santa Clara (California). The NFL announced this on Instagram, among other places. Singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and his bandmates are celebrating another highlight of their careers. They achieved their international breakthrough in 1994 with the album “Dookie”. In 2004 they won the Grammy for Best Rock Album with “American Idiot.” In 2024, the band released their 14th studio album “Saviors”, which includes, among other things, the single “The American Dream Is Killing Me”.
At the same time, the NFL’s decision to select Green Day as a musical act can certainly be read politically. With the album “American Idiot” the band once clearly positioned themselves against the government of George W. Bush. Frontman Armstrong has also repeatedly criticized Donald Trump in recent years.
The singer warned about the US President at the American Music Awards in 2016. According to Billboard, he attacked Trump again at the Download Festival in Donington Park, calling his government “fascist” and calling on the audience to resist. Armstrong also encouraged the crowd to call Trump a “fat bastard.”
Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny will perform in the halftime show – the first artist to perform the entire program in Spanish. The decision, which was announced in the fall, sparked a heated discussion in the USA. Conservative politicians and pro-Trump groups viewed the election as a “political statement” and called for an “all-American” alternative.
At the time, US President Donald Trump dismissed the NFL’s decision as “absolutely ridiculous.” Bad Bunny has spoken out against deportations and raids in the past. He initially did not want to play concerts in the USA out of fear of operations by the US immigration authorities ICE. The 31-year-old is currently one of the most successful artists in the world.
