Search Results for: Dammit

Despite their hackneyed interchangeability, there’s a difference between a rock concert and rock show. Anyone thinking of challenging this should check out a stop on Blink-182 and No Doubt’s monthlong co-headlining trek. Even though they recorded a song called “The Rock Show,” Blink’s set Thursday night at the PNC Bank Arts Center definitely fell on the concert side of the spectrum. Bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge stood dwarfed by the vast, mostly barren stage, save for five trapezoidal video screens positioned behind them. Were it not for a shirtless, mohawked Travis Barker peering down from a massive drum… Read more »

They used to be irreverent punks out for cheap thrills and even cheaper laughs, but now Blink-182 are a changed band. Their untitled new record is more experimental and multidimensional than 2001’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, adding a variety of styles (electronic rock; jangly, melancholy pop; reflective alt-rock) to their foundation of bouncy beats and kinetic guitars. It’s also more lyrically developed, trading tales of adolescent relationships for more serious dilemmas of adulthood. As singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge sang in the band’s 1997 breakthrough hit “Dammit,” “I guess this is growing up.” Growing up has a lot to do… Read more »

Two of the bands most responsible for the commercial popularity of melodic punk rock in the 1990s have come together for the coast-to-coast Pop Disaster tour, which touched down Wednesday at the nearly sold-out Forum after two big outdoor shows the previous weekend in Irvine. Both groups approached the show with a workmanlike greatest-hits mentality that was just a tad disappointing. If there was any doubt, Green Day – playing in the middle slot, after Jimmy Eat World – proved it is the better of the two veteran bands with a supertight showcase of its many hits. The San Francisco… Read more »

With nearly a decade of hits to their name and a command of large audiences that would put Tony Robbins to shame, Green Day are a hard act to follow. No wonder, then, that Blink-182 took a page from one of rock’s biggest bad boys Wednesday night in an attempt to avoid being overshadowed. Facing an opening-night Pop Disaster Tour crowd that had expended most of its energy during Green Day’s set, Mark, Tom and Travis found that even their onstage fireballs were no match for the ones their elder peers had singed the Centennial Garden with less than an… Read more »

If music can be a great escape from the cares of the day, whatever they be, then Blink-182’s fun show on Wednesday, rescheduled from a week earlier in light of recent events, was a perfect getaway. The San Diego pop-punk trio discharged their usual output of between-song locker room comments, and their three-minute tunes, which generally address little more than the standard teen concerns (first dates, school, loneliness), were all delivered with the players’ trademark sense of humor still very much intact. The 75-minute production opened with recent radio hit “The Rock Show,” which was accompanied by a giant flaming… Read more »