These three band leaders and their groups have a combined seven No. 1s on the Billboard 200 and 15 No. 1s on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart, which means they’re far removed these days from worrying about stray projectiles or emergency dental work. (Though Cuomo did have an encounter with an electric eel that left a scar during a swim break on 2012’s Weezer Cruise.) Yet instead of staying in their comfort zones, they’re eager to create a live experience that’s as legendary as anything else they have done. So they’re assembled here today to talk about what they’re calling the Hella Mega Tour: a joint trek -- produced by Live Nation and presented by Harley-Davidson -- that will kick off in Europe next June before coming to North America for a 20-date stadiums-only leg in July.
None of the bands have embarked an all-stadiums tour before, let alone in such company. At iconic baseball venues like Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park, they’ll provide, essentially, a three-hour nightly mega-mix of the music that has dominated KROQ Los Angeles playlists for the past generation -- but with the kind of star wattage that could well nudge rock closer to current pop music’s center. “The world is super hip-hop- and Instagram-[oriented], and I think this is counterprogramming to all of that,” says Wentz. “This is the biggest rock’n’roll thing that’s going to happen that summer.”
Masterminding the operation is Crush Music, the New York- and L.A.-based company that manages all three acts: Fall Out Boy since 2002 (the band has helped Crush grow as much as Crush helped it), Weezer since 2016 (Crush’s label arm has released the band’s last four albums with Atlantic) and Green Day since 2017 (when the group parted ways with its manager of 21 years, Pat Magnarella). “I asked Green Day what their goals were because they have already achieved almost every goal a band has,” recalls Crush co-founder Jonathan Daniel. “And Mike said, ‘Well, we want to play stadiums.’ ”
Green Day has played its share before, including on its last tour in 2017. But it had done so with less frequency since 2004’s American Idiot and 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown, zeitgeist-dominating albums that brought the band to commercial heights that its follow-ups (2012’s busy triple-album suite ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! and 2016’s return-to-form Revolution Radio) didn’t sustain. “It really came together when Fall Out Boy and Weezer were thrown out,” says Jenna Adler, who has booked Green Day for Creative Artists Agency since 1995. As Daniel puts it: “You want to make it exciting and relevant to you, not just a victory lap.”
Fall Out Boy, which went from tabloid-friendly stars of the 2000s’ mascara-punk explosion to one of this decade’s most reliable suppliers of jock jams, signed on immediately, eager to play alongside two of its heroes. Also onboard right away was Weezer, ’90s nerdcore fixtures that became unlikely 2010s crowd-pleasers thanks in part to last year’s winking cover of Toto’s “Africa”; recorded in response to a viral fan petition, it became the group’s biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit in 12 years. Together, the trio of bands is offering one of the true event-level team-ups in the live market. “You don’t see U2 and Coldplay touring together,” says Adler. “Nothing’s bulletproof, but this is about as bulletproof as you can get.”
The combined average turnout of each of the bands’ most recent tours is an estimated 27,000 fans per gig, based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore -- not far off from baseball stadiums’ roughly 30,000-plus concert capacities, but not factoring in any overlap in their fan bases. New music should sweeten the deal, however. In addition to the tracks they all released on the day of the tour announcement in September, Green Day and Weezer both have new studio albums, Father of All... and Van Weezer, which will arrive on Feb. 7 and in May, respectively. Fall Out Boy has a greatest-hits project due Nov. 15, and it maintains a steady radio presence through non-album hits like the ILoveMakonnen and Lil Peep collaboration “I’ve Been Waiting.” “It’s one plus one equals five,” says Daniel. “Even if it’s one plus one equals two and a half, I think we’re still good to sell out stadiums.”