Green Day, the anti-war punk rockers, swept the MTV Video Music Awards in a sign that American popular culture is turning against US presence in Iraq.

The Californian band won seven awards for their anti-war album American Idiot and the single The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, including Best Rock Video, Best Group Video, Video of the Year and the Viewer’s Choice Award.

Accepting the awards at the ceremony in Miami on Sunday night, the band members noted that they had been playing together for 16 years before the success of their latest album. “I think it struck a note right now,” bassist Mike Dirnt said. “Here’s to our soldiers. Let’s bring them home safe.”

The group has attracted much comment because their video, Wake Me Up When September Ends, about a soldier separated from his loved one by the war, is the most requested song on the music channel.

Despite Green Day’s anti-war message, the annual MTV extravaganza was overshadowed by violence. Saturday night’s shooting of Marion “Suge” Knight at a party in a Miami nightclub was feared by many to be a renewal of the East Coast-West Coast rap wars of the 1990s.

The awards ceremony was presented by Sean Combs, now calling himself Diddy. Lil’ Kim arrived in a Rolls-Royce for one of her last outings before she begins a year-long sentence for perjury for lying about a shooting in New York.

Perhaps the strangest moment came when R. Kelly, who is soon to go on trial on child pornography charges, lip-synched to his song Trapped in The Closet about a cheating wife, a cheating husband and his boyfriend.

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