Green Day kicks off FireAid concert with guest Billie Eilish

Less than three weeks after a series of historic wildfires killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures in the Los Angeles area, more than two dozen of music’s biggest names have gathered for the FireAid benefit concert: “an evening of music and solidarity,” as organizers describe it, meant to raise money to provide relief to affected Angelenos and to “prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.”

In fact, FireAid encompasses two concerts — one held at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome and the other about a mile north on Prairie Avenue at the Kia Forum. Acts on the bill include Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Green Day, Joni Mitchell, Olivia Rodrigo, Stevie Wonder, Katy Perry, Peso Pluma, Stevie Nicks, No Doubt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among many others. Produced by a team of music-industry veterans led by Irving Azoff and his family, FireAid is scheduled to begin Wednesday at 6 p.m. Pacific time and will be live-streamed on an array of platforms including Netflix, Hulu, Max, Apple TV+, Prime Video and Twitch. Connie and Steve Ballmer, who own the Clippers as well as Intuit Dome and the Forum, have pledged to match all donations made during the show.

The Times’ Mikael Wood and August Brown are on site and will provide live updates as they happen.

5:45 p.m. Hello from the floor at the Forum for the early shift of FireAid, which may not quite be Music’s Biggest Night (that’s the Grammys on Sunday), but it certainly feels like it given the sheer star caliber of lineups here and at Intuit Dome a little later. Dave Matthews dropped off the bill for a family emergency, but still in store here are Alanis Morissette, Anderson .Paak, John Mayer, Dawes, Graham Nash, Green Day, John Fogerty, Joni Mitchell, No Doubt, P!nk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stephen Stills, Stevie Nicks and the Black Crowes. Interested to see how Dawes performs given two members lost homes or studios in Altadena. (August Brown)

6:11 p.m. And greetings from a very empty Intuit Dome, where the music is supposed to get underway at 7:30 — a message that appears to have reached the people of L.A. loud and clear. FireAid organizers have said the Forum bill leans rock while the lineup at Intuit is more pop. Wonder what Rod Stewart (who’s on the bill here) thinks about that. (Mikael Wood)

7:02 p.m. Green Day kicking this off with an elegant version of “Last Night on Earth” only to bring out another Billie from the second show down the road: Eilish, who came out to sing the second verse. (AB)

7:04 p.m. Intuit Dome is showing the Forum performances on the arena’s so-called Halo Board, and the two Billies drew a huge cheer from the crowd here. (MW)

7:17 p.m “Here at the Forum,” comedian Billy Crystal said, “the goal is to raise more money than the Dodgers spent on free agents.” They’re off to a good start–Crystal announced U2 just called in a million dollar donation. He also acknowledged losing his own home in the Palisades Fire. “These are the clothes I fled in,” he said, explaining that he looks like an evacuee or “somebody who robbed a 7/11.” He said that this gig had echoes of a similar fundraising host gig he took on after 9/11. “Now I’m one of the hurting thousands asking ‘have you seen my church, have you seen my town?” (AB)

7:18 p.m. Nice monologue from Crystal, who’s been doing this kind of thing — threading the needle between humor and pathos — for … what? Half a century? “One city, one heart,” he concludes. (MW)