Live Review: Blink 182
Posted 08/28/2009 12:41PM by monkeybars as Show Review
When one of the biggest rock acts in North America opens for your band with a set barely over half an hour and has a hard time getting anyone up out of their seats (unless it’s for more outrageously priced beer), it’s clear you’re a pretty big deal. When you’re coming off a four-year hiatus, your fans aren’t expecting an incredible show. They’re expecting the second coming of Christ, riding a dragon, on fire. Once Fall Out Boy had cleared the stage and the sun had set, the show everyone came to see got underway.
Blink-182 knows this, and they made it loud and clear that they’re still the band that guided this sold-out crowd of twenty-somethings through their awkward high school years and probably introduced a good handful of them to punk. They didn’t pull any of that “this is a song we’re working on…” that always sounds like a bad b-side and no one really knows if the band is serious or not. Every big song Blink has recorded they played, one after another; from “Carousel” to “Always” their set was pure fan service, and the fans responded in kind. This was the loudest concert I’ve ever attended.
Blink spared no expense with their stage show with six huge, round monitors set behind the stage and a terrific light show to go along with it. The stage at the Molson Amphitheatre is quite big, but with Mark prancing across the stage and enough rock-star poses and sexual performances to give Spinal Tap a run for their money, the boys never seemed lost in space.
If you thought four years apart would force some maturity on Tom and Mark, well, don’t get your hopes up. There were farts in place of lyrics, dad-fucker jokes, and childish stage banter that only two kids with a combined 70 years of life experience could deliver, and the crowd ate it up. It felt familiar, light, and most of all, it felt like Blink. This show could have taken place in 2005; there wasn’t any animosity between Mark and Tom. They seemed genuinely happy to be playing with each other again.
Every good concert has its pièce de résistance, and how Travis kicked off their two song encore was undeniably the jaw-dropper. Wailing on his drums to some West-coast shit beats, his drum platform played UFO, lifting up into the air, spinning and tilting above the stage. Apparently the plane crash that ultimately led to this reunion tour didn’t have any lingering acrophobic affects. Do take five and have a look here.
This show was a gigantic boot-stomp to the face of all the bands out there that are too pretty and trying too hard to look like they’re having fun. Blink did it first, did it better, and, even four years after their bitter split, everyone else is still trying to catch up. Kudos, gentlemen, and welcome back.
Photo courtesy of Arthur Mola, www.artmola.com.
Comments
California
solid review. this is the band All Time Low will always and forever wish they were half as good as. antics and all.
Dubuque
I'm so pissed I had to miss their show on the 15th. Blink is my probably my favorite band of all time and I have to say they were the ones that got me into listening to other styles of music.
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San Jose, CA
I dunno, I think All Time Low might be able to rival them in antics, but definitely never in musical quality. Great review.
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