It’s no secret that I am a huge Blink 182 fan and have been for easily the last 10 years of my life. The day they broke up 5 years ago, they said they were going on ‘indefinite hiatus’ and it was one very sad day. I even turned KROQ off that day since listening to Kevin & Bean talk about it was too much to bare. Than, after surfing the internet about 6 months ago I stumbled upon Mark Hoppus’s blog and fell back in love. It was like riding a bicycle. Re-listening to all their cds and reading his silly blog brought me back down to earth with the cheesy jokes and peepeepoopoo songs. I remembered what its like to have responsibilities but not take everything so seriously. Living in NYC it’s easy to get caught up in going out, what label I’m wearing and all these grown up activities. But sometimes I just need to be silly, no scratch that; I want the backbone of my existence to be silliness.
I digress, as soon as the band announced they were not just getting back together to record, but to tour THIS SUMMER I almost died. I HAD to see them play. I’ve seen them play at Warped Tour or their own shows at least 7 times, and each time was different and special. I miss hearing Tom’s voice of Satan and Mark’s jokes about how he’s such a loser. So any opportunity to relive that, I’m in. The concert kicked off at The Joint in Las Vegas. I had bought tickets for the first night of the tour, which after it sold out became the second night of the tour as they added another day.
The show. The opening acts, Chester French and Motion City Soundtrack were really good. But as the lead singer of Motion City Soundtrack knew, we were not there to see them and even he himself counted down the songs until they were done. The lull before Blink came on was filled with so much energy. Than a very strategically chosen song came on and the whole audience laughed as “Reunited and it feel so good……” was playing. As soon as the curtain went up everybody’s heart skipped a beat and bam, it was like time had never passed. I wasn’t 26, I was 17 at Warped Tour with my best friend Alexis jumping around right next to me. The show lighting was incredible. The tour production designer, Martin Phillips did an amazing job.
Aside from the usual crude jokes and goofing off, Mark, Tom and Travis had an amazing set musically. They actually played like professionals, and that cannot be overlooked. The songs were tight, quick and a joy to hear. I know I haven’t and won’t mention him a lot but it must be said that Travis Barker is by far one of the most talented musicians EVER. (Bangin bangin bangin bangin) He doesn’t say a lot verbally, but his drums speak novels. I was absolutely blown away by him!
(On another note, one detail that I could not help but notice was that Mark was giving very much attention to someone on stage left. I’m sure it could have been anyone of his musician friends, one of the guys from the opening bands, but I’m sure it was more likely to be one of his kids, or his wife. Mind you all three of the guys are married (or were….Travis) and have kids. I would love to see how ‘cool’ these kids think their dad is, as you know no kid actually ever admits they think their dad is awesome.)
The entertainment on the other hand was hilarious. My favorite quote of the night was when some crowd surfer threw a flip flop up on stage and Mark actually stopped the song to yell out “What hippie mother fucker wore flip flops to a rock show?” This is the root of my love for this band. They ran through pretty much all of their best songs in what I thought was a chronological order until they got to their latest, self titled cd which they played a majority of their music from before they headed back into time with more popular songs that were put out as singles. Their encore comprised of two songs; Carousel and Damnit. Carousel is one of their oldest songs as it came of their first album and Damnit is their most recognizable hit with the line, ‘Well I guess this is growing up’. What they proved at the concert I went to Friday night is that none of us are ever going to grow up, and I am more than ok with that.
Other memorable joke:
“I may not hit rock bottom, but I’ll definitely tear up the sides.”
Someone in the audience flipped off Tom and he said “Oh that’s not nice. The next person that puts up their middle finger, I’m gonna sit on it.” So of course the entire audience flips him off which sends him into laughter and than respond, “You’re a bunch of perverts. OK, we’ll start with you.”
(TOP Picture compliments of ME.)
pic source: http://twitter.com/markhoppus
pic source: http://twitter.com/trvsbrkr
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