This past Friday, the band Green Day faced a lot of different reactions regarding their performance at the Mad Cool Festival after an entire crowd watched acrobat Pedro Aunion Monroy, fall 100 feet to his death.
Pedro was performing a stunt where he was suspended in a cage by a harness hanging from a crane, shortly after Pedro plummeted 100 feet, emergency services arrived but he was pronounced dead after they were unable to revive him. Â It is still unclear what caused his protective gear to malfunction, Â but we do know that the festival tried not to make it seem as such a big of a deal as it was.
According to a tweet Green Day posted, they were not informed until after the performance was over, they were not even aware of there being an acrobat performer at all.
Billie Joe Armstrong, came forward to talk about how his band would not have performed if they been informed about the acrobat’s death beforehand in a lengthy statement on the bands website on Sunday.
“All of us were in disbelief,” Armstrong wrote. “I don’t know why the authorities chose not to tell us about the accident before our concert. All we know is what was said after our concert. This has never happened in the 30 years Green Day have been performing live. If we had known prior to our performance we most likely would not have played at all. We are not heartless people.” He then went on to say, “What happened to Pedro is unthinkable. Once again we are heartbroken for his friends and family. We are also shocked and heartbroken for anyone that had to witness this tragedy.”
Pedro, or Mr. Monroy as he was known as mostly, was the director of a South London-based dance company called In Fact, with many friends, family members and coworkers that will mourn his death.
