Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong slipped into Liverpool’s Cavern Club and recorded a cover from the band.
Callum McMorran was performing at a famous Beatles spot on January 7 when he noticed the writer of ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’ watching him. McMorran played the 1997 song on acoustic guitar while Armstrong filmed him from the crowd.
After the show, McMorran posted on Instagram and wrote in the caption of his post, “Cool moment tonight.” “Imagine performing a Green Day song to Billie Joe Armstrong… Well, our resident Callum McMorran got to on The Cavern Club front stage,” The Cavern Club also posted.
‘Good Riddance’ was on Green Day’s album ‘Nimrod.’ Armstrong wrote it about a past girlfriend who moved to Ecuador, according to NME. Its slower pace and string music made it different from the band’s other songs, and it became a fan favorite.
“The string section thing was just something that had to be done. At first, it was a whole orchestra in there, and they’d all come in like, ‘SHUNG!'” Armstrong told Kerrang about the track last year.
The rocker continued, “And we were standing there going to the orchestra, ‘Erm, jeez, okay, you two – out, and you two, and you over there – out you go.’ We eventually cut it down to four people. It was amazing to watch, but quite cringy at the same time. In the studio, we played it as a big, Bon Jovi-style ballad. Now that was funny!”
“We didn’t want to do another ‘Dookie,’ we wanted to stretch out,” Billie Joe further explained. “We’re punks, obviously, but we’re also songwriters, and we’ll be writing songs for the rest of our lives.”
Armstrong often plays covers himself. Last month, his band The Coverups, with Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, announced a show in London on January 15. The band also features Green Day’s Jason White, audio engineer Chris Dugan, tour manager Bill Schneider, and musician Greg Schneider.
