After Reading Festival this year, I had made up my mind to go and see Blink 182 play live at the next avaliable opportunity. Not because I’m a particually huge fan of theirs… although I’ll have to admit to owning the first four albums, but because their new sound intruiged me, and also, I needed confirmation. Were they really that bad live? Did they talk for most of their set? Their Reading set didn’t prove a thing. I needed a second look.
Openers tonight, The Nervous Return, stuck to their namesake and played a nervous, uninspiring set that failed to impress anyone. I dare say theres hope there, but not at the level of effort they put in last night. An unknown opening act shouldn’t allow its lead singer to stage dive. You’re not famous enough. Get over it.
Next up however, were a band that I’d been eagerly following for awhile now. Motion City Soundtrack. Before the show, I interviewed them. This is of course after I realised I had left my questions in the car and I had to ad-lib them in KFC before the show. Read the interview here.
Their electric set was fun and full of energy, playing 35 minutes of their debut album ‘I am the Movie’ (as reviewed on last year here). Opening with ‘Cambridge’ and playing my personal favourite ‘Don’t Call It A Comeback’ fairly early into their set, they played the majority of the album, bar 3 or 4 tracks.
The mogue player, Jesse didn’t seem to stand still and Justin the lead singer proved to all that his vocal range is shockingly high.
A generally good set that was only let down by the shoddy sound system at the venue. The Hammersmith Apollo is a theatre. It’s very tall, and it’s very echo’ey. It’s difficult to get the right sound and unfortunately tonight they didn’t crack it. As was further established by Blink 182’s set.
Upon entering the stage, It was noticable that the crowd, all beit a young one, really was besotted with the band. They loved every insult Tom and Mark threw at them and even when Tom told them that half of them need to be in bed, they laughed. Blink 182, tonight, were untouchable.
Opening with the parents nightmare track, ‘Family Reunion’, they played an hour long set mainly comprised of new material, which came as a dissapointing suprise to many.
The new album is meant to be the maturing of Blink. It’s supposed to represent the true feelings of the band, with, in my opinion very strong Box Car Racer sounds coming through. (Although that could be percieved as no bad thing)
However, Blink are reknown for their stage shows. Their huge repotoire of songs enables them to play a very diverse range of tracks… their reputation for being clowns and talking alot during shows is something that any Blink fan can tell you about. However, tonight, there was none of it. I felt cheated.
Their 18 track set lasted only an hour, which cut down the amount of talk-time they had on stage and was the main reason many fans felt hard done by, purely because their reputation as crowd pleasers had been dashed before their eyes.
Musically though, the rumours of Blink being unable to play live can officially be quashed. They *can* play when they try and effort wise, 110% went into their set tonight. However, they faced the same problem as Motion City. They were let down greatly by the venues PA system which sounded tinny and full of echoes.
All in all, their set was very good, bar the sound system, however, as mentioned above, it came as somewhat of an annoyance that they did not play many of the favourite tracks featured on their first 3 albums. 10 tracks featured from the new record… however, the highlight of the night had to be ending their set with the anthem, Dammit.
An enjoyable show that seemed lacking something but none the less entertained all. All I can say is that I hope the next time Blink grace our shores, their set will be a little longer with a few more older tracks… and maybe a little conversating? Who knows. Roll on late 2004…. (new tour)