I certainly hope people are not stupid enough to go to a Blink 182 show and expect much musicianship, tightness, maturity, and anything resembling on-pitch vocals. Here’s what you should expect: Travis Barker showing he is one of the most talented drummers around who is surrounded by mediocre talent. Now, I am not sure if he is all that great in an objective sense, or if the clunkers and missed guitar notes along with the out of key vocals of his bandmates simply make him seem like a percussionist to admire. Either way, I found myself locked in on Barker throughout the set. He’s super active, dramatic, fill-ridden, creative, and always fast and busy.
Mr. Hoppus surprised me throughout the night. It’s pretty clear from most of Blink’s studio recordings that the guy is a baritone who has problems being on pitch. That’s hard to believe in this day and age when correcting vocal notes in a studio is as easy as copying and pasting a sentence from a peer reviewed journal article to plagiarize into your college research paper. Live, at least last night, Hoppus didn’t embarrass himself all that much. He hit most of the notes, and even showed he could sing one note on two octave levels. That’s pretty impressive for these guys.
Now, Mr. Tom. This guy is the epitome of sloppy in every sense of the word. His guitar playing is actually pretty insulting. Clunked notes, missed timings, strange cut-outs, and some unfortunate spontaneity at the end of a few songs which stood out like a pimple on a baby’s bottom. Vocally, he hit some correct notes, and many that were not. He dropped octaves several times. I am actually glad he did that: an out of tune low E note sounds much better than a high one. Yeah, treble always comes through more than bass.
The crowd seemed to love it all, though, and I got into the show as well. Those dudes compose some catchy songs and do produce high energy riffs on occasion.
Co-headliners My Chemical Romance put on a fairly tight set, and Gerard was pretty spot on the first half of the show. Fatigue appeared to set in later as he was dropping octaves like crazy. The mix was low on guitar, which sucked since those dudes are pretty decent on their six strings.
Opening act Manchester Orchestra was intolerable. Possibly the most boring set I have ever heard at a hard rock show. The guitars were annoyingly high in midrange (a bandwidth I hate with a passion by the way). Lyrically, these guys are lame: everyone has feelings, and I didn’t really care about theirs. Performing songs with boring feelings mixed in with boring tempos and ripped-off Zeppelin hooks should be a crime. Judging by their reaction, the crowd would agree with me.
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