Blink-182 Wrestle With the Ghost of Tom Delonge at Sunlight Supply Amphitheater, With Mixed Results

It's a funny thing when disapproving critics are browbeaten by the readers they serve into pulling a complete 180 on a band they'd prefer to write off. Though undeniably fun and hopelessly catchy, you'll find few treatises from the early aughts on how Blink-182's gloriously boneheaded pop-punk was destined to save the world. A trio of San Diegans who write bouncy anthems about beer, boners and boredom are destined to be taken at face value, and for a long time, that's exactly how it was. And then, as time went on and a bumper crop of posers like Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard came to prominence in their wake, Blink became "important." And that's where things got messy.

To their credit, it was hard to interpret the demeanor of the band as they took the stage at Sunlight Supply Amphitheater on Tuesday night, to an explosion of technicolor graphics and the word "FUCK" written in flames, as pandering to their early detractors and their revisionist history. Or pandering to anyone, for that matter. Blink has always done things on their own terms, and if you don't like it then you should go back to your bedroom and get woke about the government with Green Day. "Feelin' This" was as logical a place as any to start, and the choice of following with "What's My Age Again?" was a smart decision in pogo-pit economy, considering the average age of the audience was a spry 29 or 30.

IMAGE: Pete Cottell. IMAGE: Pete Cottell.

Alas, it took only five songs for the elephant in the amphitheater to rear its ugly head. Though I vividly recall favoring Alkaline Trio in high school because they were "more serious" and less entrenched in the boy-band schtick that endeared Blink to the giggling cheerleaders I loathed so much, the acquisition of Alkaline frontman Matt Skiba to fill the gaping hole left by deposed cofounder Tom Delonge—who presumably refused to continue with the band because he's certain his time is best spent uncovering the truth about UFOs—is unsatisfactory. Skiba is a passable singer in his own right, but his Delonge impression was downright horrendous at times. Case in point being "Down," a somber mid-tempo cut from the middle of the group's 2003 self-titled record that was almost unrecognizable until the chorus. Between that and a flaccid rendition of "Miss You," it was almost as if you could feel the goodwill longtime fans had gradually built toward Blink's most ambitious and divise record evaporate into the night air with every elongated vowel and atonal drift of one consonant sound into another.

The smattering of tracks from their latest effort, California, gave Skiba a sturdier case for his job, but beyond the parts written specifically for him in lead single "Bored to Death" and the dismal uptempo skulking of "Los Angeles," only casual observers who gave zero shits about who was onstage were able to completely commit to the lukewarm renditions of the many Delonge-led classics. In spite of that, the encore of "Carousel," "All the Small Things" and "Dammit" was a swift reminder that music need not be serious to be enjoyable. Sometimes, the boorish escapism of the knuckleheaded punk music of your youth succeeds in overriding desires for intellectual stimulation.

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