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Blink-182 Saint Charles reviews
Great show, would be better without Lil Wayne
Sadly I only caught the last song of Neck Deep's set so I can't comment much on that part of the show. Lil Wayne's set started with his DJ playing random snippets of other people's songs and sucking up hard to "the greatest rapper of all time." Then when Wayne himself came on stage, he too only performed snippets of his own songs, because that's what happens when all your songs feature other people. Not that his music is great anyway.
Luckily, blink-182 saved the day. This is my fourth time seeing them live, and the second time with new[-ish] singer Matt Skiba replacing Tom Delonge. While I've long been a fan of Skiba during his tenure with Alkaline Trio, he didn't sound quite at home with blink the last time I saw them play. I'm happy to say this has been remedied on the current tour and Skeebz sounds like he's gelling with the band a lot better.
On this tour, the band was playing their album Enema of the State in its entirety, with a smattering of other songs thrown in. After the first few tracks of Enema, blink took a break to play their latest single "I Really Wish I Hated You." It was my first time hearing it yet I was still able to sing along by the end of the track. They then returned to finish off the rest of EotS. Afterwards, the band left the stage and moved right in front of the seating area across the floor to perform acoustic versions of songs from other albums. Curse my short stature, for I was on the floor and couldn't get a good luck at the band which was now behind me.
After this acoustic interlude, we were treated to a mind-blowing Travis Barker drum solo. He was strapped into some kind of harness, with him and his entire drum kit enclosed a spherical structure. Travis along with his drumset rotated across the horizontal axis as the man beat away at the skins as only he can. I've seen similar spectacles at blink shows in the past, including one where Travis was lifted high off the ground while performing a drum solo. It's not something I ever get tired of seeing.
The boys of blink finished off the show with a selection of old and new hits. The final song they performed was the classic "Dammit" from Dude Ranch. Blink-182 is one of those bands that I will always enjoy watching and I hope I can do so for many more years to come.