Green Day superfan joins band on stage at festival

Matt Taylor & Emma Caldwell
BBC News, Leicester
Supplied India Barton sharing the mic with Billie Joe Armstrong. He is in all black with a white guitar. She is in a white cheerleader outfit.Supplied
Ms Barton described singing with the band's lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong was "crazy"

A woman who sang on stage with Green Day at Download festival said the experience "was a real big blast".

India Barton was seeing the band for the ninth time on Friday when she was invited on stage at Donington Park in Leicestershire to sing their hit, Know Your Enemy.

The 27-year-old, from Ely, Cambridgeshire, said the experience of getting to meet and sing with lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong was "crazy".

She said it was her sixth time attending the event, which she described as "a really friendly festival".

Supplied India Barton smiling holding two drumsticks either side of her face.Supplied
India Barton said she enlisted the help of her boyfriend, family and the people around her in the crowd to get the band's attention

"I'm a really big Green Day fan, and I know that at all their gigs for one specific song, they always pull someone up to sing," Ms Barton said.

"So me, my dad, my boyfriend and my best friend, we all had this plan to just get me on there.

"I spoke to everybody in the crowd, and I was like, when I go on someone's shoulders, can you all point at me?

"So as soon as the song started, I went up, and everyone around me was just pointing. I was waving the pom-poms, and then it worked."

Ms Barton said she lost her voice on Wednesday, two days before she got up on stage.

"When it came to the Friday and I was getting on the stage, all I was thinking was, 'oh, my God, I haven't got a voice. What am I going to do? I'm just going to have to squeal'.

"It was one of those moments where I thought, I'm just going to have to go for this. So I just went.

"When we were leaving, I had so many people coming up to me, saying, you were amazing and stuff."

Thousands of rock fans attended the festival, which also saw performances by Korn, Sleep Token, Weezer and McFly.

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