"We are Green Day, and this one's called Welcome To Paradise": Watch Green Day play a surprise secret acoustic show in a London pub

Green Day play London pub — (Image credit: Jinx Wad Hill YouTube)

Green Day are currently in London on their intimate Hella Tiny tour, and will play the 1200-capacity Electric Ballroom in Camden tonight, November 10. However, the Californian trio clearly decided that this wasn't quite intimate enough, so Billie Joe Amstrong's band rocked up to a central London pub last night (November 9) to play a surprise secret acoustic gig.

The gig took place at the Marquis pub in Covent Garden, and was livestreamed on the band's Instagram account. It had been teased earlier in the day on the same platform, with drummer Tre Cool posting a cryptic message stating, “Right now, Green Day’s in London, looking to have us some fun then. If I were the fans, I wouldn’t make plans. Keep all your cellies plugged in.”

Billed as Busk Till Dawn, the band opened their set with Welcome To Paradise, the third single from their 1994 album, Dookie, then played Burnout from the same album. Next up, the trio, augmented by touring members Jason White and Jason Freese, played The American Dream Is Killing Me, the first single lifted from their forthcoming 14th album, Saviors. Tre Cool then pulled open the curtains behind him so that fans standing outside the venue could get a better view of proceedings inside, before the group played a second song from their new album, Look Ma, No Brains!

The rest of the 13-song set was comprised of Warning, Letterbomb, Christie Road, Basket Case, All By Myself (with Tre Cool on vocals), She, Walking Contradiction, Minority, and American Idiot.

Watch the whole gig below:

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The band will perform at the Electric Ballroom tonight.

Saviors is scheduled for release on January 19 via Reprise/Warner.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.