Green Day rolling into Pittsburgh

NEW YORK (AP) — Riding the success of their latest CD, “21st Century Breakdown,” punk rock trio Green Day brings its tour to Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena on Wednesday. Opening act is The Bravery, and tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show are available via Ticketmaster.

“Breakdown” has become one of the year’s top-selling albums and has cemented the band’s status as an important rock band, a title it earned with 2004’s “American Idiot.”

The band has been hotter than most. And for some, maybe a little too hot.

In an interview with America Online’s Spinner.com a couple of months ago, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said his Grammy-winning band gave “American Idol” producers the jitters during a performance on the show two years ago.

The producers were nervous about profanity in John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.” Green Day performed the song on the show’s finale in 2007.

“We almost got thrown off the show before it even started because they didn’t trust us,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Man, we’ve done this so many times. We can do this.’ And finally they’re like, ‘OK, you guys have to record it before.’ So we played to a completely empty room.”

Armstrong said he couldn’t see the band returning to the Fox network singing competition as a mentor, as some other acts have done.