Watch: Metallica Pay Respects To Green Day, Cover American Idiot

Metallica covering Green Day? I mean, it’s awesome, but who’da thunk it? Well, what was surely a dream for many, came to life at the recent Voodoo Festival in New Orleans.

According to NME, a few songs into their headlining slot, frontman James Hetfield offered a brief tip-of-the-hat to Green Day and their embattled frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. Speaking to the crowd, Hetfield said: “You’re hoping Green Day are going to show up, right? So am I. They’re getting help. They’re getting it sorted out. The world needs them.”

Straight away, the band then broke into the chart-topping smash hit American Idiot, originally performed by Green Day (in case you had been living under a rock all these years). The cover was purely instrumental, relying on crowd chants to fill the vocal part. The rendition lasts only a few bars before Hetfield once again speaks up to inform the crowd that ‘there are some bits after that…but that’s all we had time to learn’. Next, the band performed their own track Creeping Death.

Metallica rose to the challenge to perform at the festival after Green Day were forced to pull out so Armstrong could focus on his current rehab treatment. According to MTV, Metallica also dedicated Battery to Armstrong, though not before joking “We are Green Day…except a little taller.”

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