Lineup: blink-182/A Day to Remember/All Time Low
Venue: Xfinity Center, Mansfield, MA
Date: August 19th, 2016
All Time Low: I got to my seats when they were already a few songs into their set. I have a pretty low (no pun intended) opinion of the limited material I've heard by them, but they were not nearly as annoying or whiny live as I remember them being on disc. At the very least, All Time Low prevented me from having to see The All American Rejects (they were the opener for the first half of this tour) and for that, I'll be forever thankful.
A Day to Remember: Just like the last time I saw blink-182 back in 2011, my primary reason for attending this show was the direct support band. A Day to Remember has been near the top of my "bands I need to see live" list for several years and given their tendency to tour with bands that I absolutely despise (Pierce the Veil, Of Mice & Men, Motionless in White, many others), I jumped at the chance to see them on a bill with a solid lineup.
Thankfully, A Day to Remember tdidn't fall short of my sky-high expectations. Their setlist did a good job of blending heavier material to please their own fanbase with a number of accessible cuts to avoid alienating the audience members that were there exclusively for blink and vocalist Jeremy McKinnon was a rowdy frontman who seemed to be right at home on a huge stage. There was some slight issues with McKinnon's vocals at times (primarily on some of the higher notes of "Right Back at It Again" and the screams during the verses of "I'm Made of Wax Larry, What Are You Made Of?) and I could have done without the abundance of material from their mediocre 2010 album What Separates Me From You, but it was still a very satisfying performance from the pop punk/metalcore juggernauts.
blink-182: August 9th, 2011 is a day that I have reminisced on ad nauseam over the past five years. That date is significant because it marked the first time I saw blink-182 and I can say without hesitation that it is the single worst day of life so far that didn't involve the death of a loved one. The events that occurred before, during and after the show made for an unprecedented shitshow that I will continue to bitch about until my petty, loud-mouthed ass has left this hellhole otherwise known as Earth.
Here are the riveting cliffnotes on why that show was a scarring, miserable experience:
-My friend's super considerate girlfriend forced my other 5 friends and I to delay our departure time by 4 hours. By the time we actually left around 6:00, the traffic was so bad that we came within minutes of missing the start of My Chemical Romance's-the main band a few of us came to see-set.
-The crowd was full of super drunk, douchey bros more fixated on fighting one another than watching the show.
-It rained at a monsoon-like level for the entirety of blink's set.
-blink-182 pissed all over my inner teenager's dreams with a very lackluster performance. James Harden puts in more effort on the defensive side of the floor on a nightly basis than blink did into their performance on that fateful evening.
-After spending a solid hour and a half being stuck in traffic (for people who have never been to this venue, this is a staple of the wonderful Xfinity Center. I'm firmly convinced that their parking lot was designed by Tyrone Biggums and several of his closest, pipe-hitting friends), my friend's demonic girlfriend refused to order Wendy's for the people in the car that I was in WHILE THEY WERE 1 CAR AWAY FROM ORDERING IN A 30+ CAR DEEP LINE. The soul-crushing feeling of being denied a Crispy Chicken Sandwich when you're hungry as fuck at 1:00 am because of the selfishness of another person is something that I hope you fine people never have to experience.
Just over five years later, I returned to the Xfinity Center to give the iconic pop punk trio that gave me many a fond memory as an awkward, angst-filled teenager growing up in suburban Massachusetts a shot at redemption. The concert gods must've taken note of my suffering because this show was the complete opposite of the previous time I saw blink-182.
I had been theorizing for months that Tom Delonge-who left the band early last year-was the catalyst for blink-182's disappointing live show back in 2011 and that hypothesis turned out to be spot-on. The band I saw five years ago that looked like they were being forced to perform together at gunpoint was replaced by one that had excellent chemistry and appeared to be having a blast on stage. The staggering improvement in quality of their live performance served a powerful reminder of the effect a member change can have on the well-being and musical tightness of a band.
It also helps that bassist/vocalist and drummer Travis Barker decided to bring in a proven, veteran vocalist in Alkaline Trio frontman/guitarist Matt Skiba to replace Delonge. Skiba seemed like a puzzling choice on paper due to how drastically different Alkaline Trio's music is from blink's and how much lower his vocals are than Delonge's, but as he proved on their new record California, he's a surprisingly great fit with the band and has allowed them to return to the more uptempo, punk style they utilized on their first four album. After watching him crush the band's Delonge-era material, I'm even more aboard with Skiba's presence in blink-182. He did an excellent job of making the older material his own without taking away from the spirit and tone of the studio versions, which is no easy task when you're replacing the group's founding co-lead vocalist.
The setlist was pretty much exactly the hit-driven collection of songs you'd expect from a veteran band doing their first proper headlining tour in four years, but it was still an extremely satisfying and entertaining 75-minute set that absolutely flew by. The material from California was fun as all hell live and it was pure nostalgic bliss seeing songs like "Dumpweed", "First Date" and "What's My Age Again?" properly played for the first time. With Delonge out of the picture, the newest incarnation of blink-182 have successfully returned to the goofy, fun pop punk force they were in their heyday and gave me a set of new, much rosier memories to associate their live show with.
Scores:
All Time Low 4/10
A Day to Remember 8/10
blink-182 8.5/10
Setlists:
A Day to Remember:
The Downfall of Us All
I'm Made of Wax Larry, What Are You Made Of?
It's Complicated
2nd Sucks
Right Back at It Again
Have Faith in Me
All Signs Point to Lauderdale
Paranoia
All I Want
If It Means a Lot to You
The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle
blink-182:
Feeling This
What's My Age Again?
Family Reunion
The Rock Show
Cynical
First Date
Down
I Miss You
Bored to Death
Built This Pool
Dumpweed
Reckless Abandon
Stay Together for the Kids
San Diego
Not Now
Violence
Kings of the Weekend
Dysentery Gary
Happy Holidays, You Bastard
Los Angeles
Encore:
Carousel
All the Small Things
Brohemian Rhapsody
Dammit
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