Around 14,500 fans were in the sold-out town hall for the first Blink-182 guest performance in eons. The Californian pop-punk legends relied on a lot of fire, big hits and deeper puberty jokes. A perfect evening to remember the carefree times of yesteryear.
Rarely have the contrasts in one place been so great in such a short time as they were these days in the Wiener Stadthalle. On Tuesday, the Icelandic avant-garde elf Björk paralyzed with a multimedia psychedelic tour into the winding depths of sugary LSD fantasies, while the next day a no-frills pop-punk nostalgia party ensured collective liberation from the groaning everyday life. The still lively trio Blink-182 with Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, which is approaching the 50s or already over it, recently got back together after almost a decade of internal feuds and is currently celebrating this triumph with an all-round band sold out European tour. In the Wiener Stadthalle, too, 14,500 fans, mostly in their late 30s and 40s, squeezed close together to beam themselves back to a time when everything seemed as weightless as Nena’s 99 balloons. Fight against the effort But in principle you know from experience : Nostalgia can be a dog and false glorification doesn’t make you happy either. After the pathetic Strauss intro “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, the three Californians really get going and convey unity and joy, at least to the outside world. Volleys of pyrotechnics shoot up the hall ceiling, fireworks explode from all corners and eye-catcher Barker proves very early on with his shirt print “Chicago Penis Patrol” that one deliberately does not carry the maturity of one’s years onto the stage. Having to be a young professional can be tiring. The Offspring ran out of steam years ago, and since then the band balloon has been fluttering crumpled from festival to festival. The Canadians from Sum 41 have noticed in their 40s that the problems with first love, school desks and premature ejaculation are no longer so authentic and are canceling their sails next year. With Blink-182 things are going in the diametrically different direction. During the gig they loudly announced a new studio album that would be released soon and also presented the only new song since the three-piece comeback, “Edging”, which caused cautious cheers. New things have just as little place in a nostalgia show as natural aging. The team almost frantically pulls the penis jokes throughout the evening, sometimes even taking the drive out of the show. As is often the case in life, the most important point of a team is the one who talks the least. Travis Barker, who recently had to jet home due to an emergency operation on his newly born child, which resulted in Blink-182 canceling several gigs, works on his kit with beastly vehemence and quite enviable precision. He even masters more dissonant passages such as “Up All Night” with confidence. While the two frontmen blast more or a few expired insults into the hall, Barker works relentlessly and gives the band a good two thirds of the total punch. The youth stays away. In addition to two large screens, a video cube that moves up and down provides the indispensable background visual, whatever it is relies again on old photos and reviews of the past. The musicians cannot hide their advancing age as much as they would like. In the close-ups on the video wall, you can often see DeLonge’s eye twitching; when Hoppus stands behind his microphone, he even looks like Rudi Anschober with glasses and a slightly raised hairstyle. The two frontmen always take turns on the main vocals on classics like “Anthem Part Two”, “The Rock Show”, “Dysentery Gary” or “Dumpweed”. At some point Barker allows himself to be carried into the air with his drum set and bludgeons the last third of the concert from the first floor. The fans are thrilled. Beer cups fly, wild manes rotate, faces laugh. Only the youth are missing. There may be a pop-punk revival, but Blink-182 primarily attract guests with whom they themselves grew up. Despite all the volleys of fire and jokes that are knee-deep below the belt, the three of them show themselves at their best when if they stop making jokes and get serious. Songs like “Stay Together For The Kids” and “I Miss You”, which focus on serious topics, prove that this suits them more than well. Before what is perhaps the band’s best song, the emotionally charged “Adams Song”, Hoppus not only talks about the cancer he had just overcome last year, including the arduous chemotherapy treatments, but also goes back to the origins, where he deals with himself, his sudden fame and the The world in general was no longer able to cope and was seriously considering drawing a final line in the sand. These moments may not fit into the excessive informality of the evening, but they prove that even as a funny punk combo you can slide gracefully into your later years – you just have to allow it. Successful return After a slow start with many playing errors , the work picks up speed as the evening progresses and then turns into the big party that everyone was looking forward to in the last third of the concert. With hits like “What’s My Age Again?”, “All The Small Things” and the almost 30-year-old “Dammit” you can still effortlessly scrape the last bit of frustration out of every fan’s face after a hard and long weekday. DeLonge strangles his guitar decorated with expert TSOL, Descendents and Fugazi picks, Hoppus digs into the deepest joke box a few more times and Barker, personified and fully tattooed coolness, flails over all the cymbals and snares. After just an hour and a half, the fireworks of hits and old quarrels are over, which means that a parallel can actually be drawn with Björk the evening before, at least in terms of playing time. Blink-182 are no longer “woke” in their old age, but such a puberty-humorous portion of nonsense and informality is liberating even in the age of constant warnings and virtual eagle eyes. The “Family Reunion” was a success in the end.
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