{"id":8855,"date":"2023-10-17T16:11:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T10:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/blink-182-at-manchester-ao-arena-review-crass-convivial-chaos-music-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2023-10-17T16:11:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T10:41:43","slug":"blink-182-at-manchester-ao-arena-review-crass-convivial-chaos-music-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/blink-182-at-manchester-ao-arena-review-crass-convivial-chaos-music-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Blink 182 at Manchester AO Arena review – crass, convivial chaos | Music | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cWhat\u2019s my age again?\u201d sang Blink 182 as their high-octane show came to a close. It\u2019s a good question, and one I Googled on my way home.\u00a0Tom DeLonge is 47, Mark Hoppus is 51, and Travis Barker is 47. Yet the show was littered with crass patter worthy of a high school corridor. \u201cWe want to f**k all of you,\u201d Tom told the 21,000-strong Manchester crowd as they kicked things off. And the talk of genitalia and shagging continued for the next 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

Often it was misogynistic, with talk of bedding mums and non-existent female orgasms. What might have been silly in the early 2000s didn\u2019t land, instead coming across as dated and offensive. But the AO Arena didn\u2019t sell out twice over (tonight was the first of two shows in Manchester) for fans to hear them speak. And, in fact, when Blink 182 stuck to what they do best – pure punk pop rock – the show was a lot of fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Rock Show, Family Reunion and Man Overboard ramped up the energy to almost manic levels, with assaulting strobe lighting to match.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No expense was spared on the pyrotechnics, something Mark commented on, saying: \u201cWe paid a lot of money for these.\u201d <\/span>
<\/span>It showed, and fans lapped up the fire, steam, streamers and fireworks that peppered the show throughout.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As with Muse a week or so before, the sound in the AO Arena didn\u2019t start strong, and Mark and Tom\u2019s lyrics were somewhat muffled to begin with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Things seemed to improve somewhere around Feeling This.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Travis, who wisely only spoke two words the entire night, was a highlight. Drumming until his fingers literally bled – as gruesome camera close-ups revealed – he was mesmeric, particularly when raised into the air on a plinth for Down and Bored To Death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark placed a towel over his head for Violence, and he continued to play blind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To absolutely nobody\u2019s surprise, the big hitters of the night were Miss You and All The Small Things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The former saw Mark blow imaginary smoke off his fingers triumphantly once finished, and the latter saw the crowd raise the roof.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Frenetic, Blink powered through their hits in a frenzy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it was the more subtle moments in which there was real magic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark, who battled stage four lymphoma in 2021, and considered taking his own life, opened up to the crowd before Adam\u2019s Song.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I wrote this I was in a dark place and I didn\u2019t know if I wanted to carry on,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then again when I had cancer, there were days when I felt like I was dying and days when I wanted to die. I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d ever be on stage again. This band, this tour, this album, and every single person who is coming to these shows is saving my life a second time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed with a new album – One More Time – and new songs – of which More Than You Know, Edging and Dance With Me made the setlist last night – Blink 182 are back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s good to have them, even if they need to wash their mouths out with soap.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] \u201cWhat\u2019s my age again?\u201d sang Blink 182 as their high-octane show came to a close. It\u2019s a good question, and one I Googled on my way home.\u00a0Tom DeLonge is 47, Mark Hoppus is 51, and Travis Barker is 47. Yet the show was littered with crass patter worthy of a high school corridor. \u201cWe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}