The Brickbat

Hi, Blink-182! Damn glad to see you again…

Posted on 28. Aug, 2009 by Sean in Featured, Music Reviews, Rants

I went to see Blink-182 on Wed night at PNC in Holmdel and it was an amazing show.  I missed out seeing the fat slobs in Taking Back Sunday who I haven’t cared about since their first album came out and I got there too late for Weezer as well.  Weezer isn’t a band I give a shit about anymore, either.  Maladroit, started me down that road and the topper was the song “Beverly Hills” which I consider a horrific pox on music that I will never forgive them for.  But I digress… I ended up arriving right as Blink was taking the stage and I could feel myself getting giddy.  Let me say, I am not ashamed at all to admit that I LOVE Blink-182.  I love their songs, I love their goofy onstage antics, and I love that they make me feel like I’m 21 again.  They played all of their hits incredibly well and they had the crowd squealing with delight.  In fact, the only blemish to me was “Adam’s Song.”  Mark was straining to hit those high notes like he was passing a golf ball-sized kidney stone.  But even that song wasn’t terrible and all in all – It was just good to have Blink-182 back. 

When they broke up a few years ago and each member went and did their own thing, it really bummed me out.  Not only because it was the end of an era, but also because each new band they left us with was horrible – Angels and Airwaves?  + 44?  The Transplants?  Ugh, are you kidding me?  They all came prepackaged with so much hype and did not come anywhere close to measuring up to their combined efforts in Blink-182.  That, plus the fact that I had listened to Blink through some of the most fun, yet transitional periods of my life made me miss them in a deeper sense than some random band breaking up.  To me, it felt more like I had lost a friend. 

Blink has always represented pure joy to me.  The way Mark, Tom and Travis interacted with each other and their audience was so sincere and unique to bands of their stature.  Most bands have an air of superiority they carry onstage.  Blink never did.  They made you feel like you could jump up on stage and become a part of their group in a heartbeat.  Whether I saw them at the Trocadero, opening for Less Than Jake, in front of a couple hundred kids or playing in front of thousands at a huge venue like PNC or Tweeter, they welcomed you to their shows like normal, yet super lucky  dudes who were completely thankful for the opportunity they received and the success they achieved.  I loved that about them because it’s easy to get jaded in the music business and they seemed to be above all that.

Alas, it turns out they weren’t above all that.  Towards the end of their first run together, we started seeing some changes.  Tom seemed to be getting a little full of himself and wanting to evolve Blink into this more sophisticated and progressive rock machine.  To be honest, I hated Blink’s last studio album and I began drifting away from the unwavering devotion I had always had for them.  They got outside of what they were, which was a mistake.  Don’t get me wrong, I know bands want to evolve, but Blink didn’t need to evolve for the sake of evolving.  All of their prior efforts to their last album had a small, but logical progression from the previous one.  But the last album went way too far into left field.  The Cure-like atmosphere on a lot of songs just wasn’t Blink.  Side projects could have achieved that goal of creating something off the band’s beaten path and left Blink for their fans.  You can see what I mean in the videos for the album.  “Feeling This” an homage to Pink Floyd’s The Wall tried way too hard , “Down” was too preachy and “Miss You” and “Always” were stupid glammed up videos that should have been used by “serious” bands like Coldplay or The Killers.  Blink got away from what had made them great – those incredibly hilarious, pop culture-skewing videos and the fun loving, sometimes teen-angsty songs that were their staple for so long – and it really sucked. 

But even though I wasn’t a fan of the new stuff, Blink was still a band I liked just knowing were there.  It was comforting in a “musical security blanket” kind of way.  Even if I forgot about them for a while or didn’t listen to their albums for a few months, when I did re-connect with them, they would always bring me back to an amazingly fun time in my life.  Dude Ranch and Enema of the State remind me of bright summer days, driving around with the windows down, talking with my pals about girls and life and where we were gonna get drunk that weekend.  A carefree time that you miss when faced with the mundanity and daily responsibilities  of adulthood.  Blink is an emotional fountain of youth.  They make you giggle at low brow, toilet humor that you’ve grown (ahem) far too sophisticated to appreciate in your old age.  They make you nod your head to 3 chords of simplistic brilliance which always made me wonder why I couldn’t write something similar (oh, right – that whole lack of talent thing).  But the point is Blink-182 is all the fun times you had as a kid that you sometimes forget you’re capable of.  They make me want to pick up my guitar and play along to their records while drinking beers with my friends and talking about stuff that is spectacularly unimportant in the grand scheme of our overall lives. 

On Wednesday I had a smile on my face for an hour and half and just remembered all the great firsts I shared with that band:  The first time I saw and heard “Dammit” on 120 Minutes and was blown away by the lyrics and the sing-along-ability of that song.  Or the first time I saw the outrageous videos for “What’s My Age Again” and “All the Small Things” and couldn’t believe how brilliant and ballsy they were.  Or how I thought “Carousel” was the best song ever for, like, 3 minutes until I heard “M&Ms.”  Or how I always wished I would one day get a girlfriend like “Josie” (which I did).   Blink are the soundtrack to an endless amount of my life’s snapshots, forever stashed away in my memory.  And I’m so thankful for that. 

The wonderful thing about Blink is their blissful minimalism.  They don’t try to be anything they’re not.  They’re a bunch of SoCal kids who loved to skateboard, go to the beach and play punk rock.  And a few years ago they made it big and brought joy to millions of kids the world over.  Now, a few slight detours aside, they’ve returned to recapture all their former glory.  It’s a shame it took a near tragic plane crash to provide the impetus for the 3 former friends to reunite, but I’m glad they did.  The world seems like a better place with them back together.

Welcome back, Blink-182.  I missed you homos. 

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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