(hennemusic) Green Day are addressing their July 7 performance at Madrid, Spain's Mad Cool Festival following the death of acrobat Pedro Aunion Monroy just minutes before they took the stage.
The Independent reports Monroy was inside a box hanging from a crane when he fell from a height of around 100 feet in front of thousands of spectators at the music festival.
"Mad Cool Festival regrets the terrible accident that the aerial dancer suffered during the second day of the festival," tweeted event organizers following the incident. "For security reasons, the festival decided to continue with its programming. We send our most sincere condolences to all his family," they added, while announcing plans to pay tribute to the late acrobat on July 8.
Green Day took the stage to perform their headline set in support of their latest album, "Revolution Radio", without being informed of the tragic news until after they had completed their show.
"We just got off stage at Mad Cool Festival to disturbing news," tweeted the band. "A very brave artist named Pedro lost his life tonight in a tragic accident. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends."
Faced with a social media backlash for performing following the fatality, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong explained further details about the situation via the band's own social media sites on Saturday
"Last night at the Mad Cool festival in Spain, there was a horrific accident," Armstrong began. "An acrobat by the name of Pedro was killed during his performance before Green Day played our show. We are so sad for Pedro and his family and we pray for them in this time of grief. I can't imagine how much suffering the friends and family are going through.
"Many of you are wondering why we continued to play our show after the accident. Green Day did not hear about the accident until after our show was over. We didn't even know there was an acrobat performance at all. These festivals are huge. There are so many things happening at the same time it's impossible to keep up with every performer/artist." Read more here.
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