¡Tré! will now be released on December 11, 2012

How was the weekend, music fans? Hope everyone out there is head-ache free this morning after what was assuredly a great weekend for Halloween festivities. But let’s get back to it by checking out one of the more interesting rock-related happenings of this past weekend.

Fans of the recently troubled pop punk outfit Green Day – specifically those who were planning on catching the trio live in concert this year – will be disappointed at the recent announcement that the band has now officially canceled all of 2012 shows as well as those planned for January and February of next year.

Although it’s almost impossible to anticipate these things, fans that have been paying close attention to the recent history of the band should not be completely surprised.  Earlier this year, Green Day was forced to cancel an Italian gig due to health problems concerning frontman Billie Joe Armstrong.

Things took a turn for the worse when Armstrong appeared publically intoxicated during the band’s iHeart Radio festival appearance in Las Vegas where he ended the show by going off on a rage fueled rant caused by a slight time constraint on their set (even though the band itself was late to take the stage). Armstrong checked into a rehab facility to combat his alcohol abuse following the events of that show.

More recently, the band withdrew from their planned Voodoo Music Experience appearance in New Orleans last weekend – very strange for a band that has had a strong history of never cancelling shows, at least until this year.  

And now, things have finally culminated with an official statement from the band that confirmed the cancelled dates, although fans should be happy to know that the same statement revealed that Green Day will be moving up the release date for the album ¡Tré! ahead of schedule in order to make up for the news.

This means that instead of its scheduled release date of January 15th, fans will be able to grab a copy of ¡Tré! on December 11th while the second album in the trilogy, ¡Dos!, will still meet its original November 13th date. 

"We feel bad we have to delay our tour, so to make up for it we want to give our fans the music earlier than we had planned," drummer Tré Cool said. "If we couldn't be there to play it for you live, the least we could do was give you the next best thing."

"Obviously the timing for this isn't ideal, but Billie Joe's well-being is our main concern," added bassist Mike Dirnt.

Well, there you have it, although no official word has been given about the exact ‘health reasons” concerning Armstrong, one needs only to take a look at the last two months to find a probably answer. Still though, we wish Armstrong the best of luck.