“Ah, Citi Field… so this is where the Mets lose,” said Mark Hoppus to a crowd of laughter and boos at blink-182‘s first-ever NYC stadium show. It was a very blink-182 way to acknowledge the career milestone, and the place was unsurprisingly packed for the band, who played three consecutive NYC-area arena shows and headlined a festival in Atlantic City just one year earlier. For their stadium debuts on this run (which also hits Fenway Park on Tuesday, 7/23), blink are putting on almost the exact same show you’d see if they were still playing clubs. They took advantage of the outdoor venue’s ability to set off fireworks, had Travis Barker do his trademark elevating drum platform for a few songs, and used a few necessary pre-recorded samples for things like acoustic guitar, piano, and sound effects, but for the most part, they filled the stadium with the same scrappy punk trio setup they’ve had since day one. Outside of Travis’ superhuman technical prowess, blink-182 are not exactly known for rock-god musicianship, but that’s never mattered before and it still didn’t matter now that they’ve made the jump to baseball stadiums. They know exactly what they need to do to put on an endearing blink-182 show, and you might think it looks easy, but there’s no other trio in the world who does it like they do.
The 2023 tour was blink-182’s first tour with the classic lineup of Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker in nearly a decade, but at that point, the only song they’d released from their comeback album One More Time was “Edging,” and this new tour finds them returning to NYC and several other cities for the first time since the album came out. One More Time is an imperfect album, but it’s also an album that’s full of charming moments, especially for longtime fans, and it was just as much a treat to finally see them play the new songs as it was to witness another round of classics. It was clear that a large majority of those in attendance at Citi Field have latched onto the new songs and learned the words, and none of the songs–new or old–ever resulted in any lulls during the 90-minute set. It’s easy to think of blink-182 as something to be nostalgic for, but seeing a packed stadium of people loving every moment of 30 years’ worth of material–with huge hits and deep cuts alike–you’re reminded that this is a career band with a rich, enduring catalog.
One of the most powerful moments of the show came during one of the One More Time songs, “More Than You Know.” It’s one of the album’s heavier post-hardcore-leaning songs, with one of its most infectious choruses, and it’s hard not to hear it as a self-referential song that deals with Mark’s journey with cancer and Tom’s return as both a bandmate and a friend. That was amplified at Citi Field when screenshots of Mark and Tom’s text exchanges that followed Mark’s diagnosis were flashed on the screen behind the trio. For a set that had no lack of dumb-on-purpose sex jokes between songs, moments like these proved that blink-182 can also be dead serious.
One of the newest songs of the night was followed by one of the oldest; blink-182 have been breaking out Cheshire Cat faves “Carousel” and “M+M’s” on this tour for the first time since reuniting, and the Citi Field crowd was treated to a super fun rendition of the latter. The band made sure to touch on every era of their career, from that scrappy early song to their hits-filled ’97-’03 run to a heavy highlight from their 2011 reunion album Neighborhoods (“Up All Night”) to the hit song they had when Matt Skiba took over for Tom DeLonge, “Bored to Death” from 2016’s California. Even though it was written during Tom’s absence, you can tell that Tom has a lot of fun singing with Mark on it, and at this point, that eight-year-old song is pretty much a blink-182 staple.
They have also been playing their untitled-era non-album fan fave “Not Now” on this tour, and–adding to the theme that this reunion is all about putting the contentious parts of their past behind them–this tour marks the first-ever time that blink-182 are performing material from their side projects, the Mark/Travis band +44 and the Tom/Travis band Box Car Racer. They did a medley where they played a partial, slowed-down version of +44’s “When Your Heart Stops Beating” into a partial version of Box Car Racer’s “There Is,” and to close it out with Travis getting a chance to sing one of his songs, they went right into “Fuck Face,” the 27-second hardcore song from the new album that Travis takes lead vocals on. It felt like a long time coming for blink to finally incorporate the side project songs into their set–here’s hoping that one day they’ll even do the full versions.
This current tour also includes a new, not-yet-released song called “Can’t Go Back” that the band said is from an upcoming deluxe edition of One More Time, and they’ve been rotating out other deeper cuts throughout the tour that weren’t played in 2023–Citi Field got a killer rendition of “Obvious.” And, of course: hits, hits, and more hits. blink-182’s “crappy punk rock” has always been fueled by one of the greatest songwriting duos in modern popular music, and those irresistible songwriting sensibilities shined whether they were begrudgingly replicating their own formula (“First Date,” “The Rock Show”) or pushing themselves to new limits (“Feeling This,” “Down”), and all of those moments were huge crowd-pleasers on Sunday night. The most unstoppable run of hits came at the end, when blink went straight from “What’s My Age Again?” into “First Date” into “All the Small Things” into “Dammit” without stopping to take a breath. It ended things with a bang after a bang after a bang, with tons of fireworks to seal the deal. (Mark also sang part of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” during the bridge of “Dammit.”) It’s a hell of a way to close out a show.
blink-182 have long poked fun at the concept of encores, and the Citi Field show was no different, when Mark said “this is the encore!” right after finishing up “Dammit” and going into one last song without leaving the stage. You can’t get more energetic than the four-song run that led up to “Dammit,” but you can get more emotional, and that’s what they did. They ended with the title track of One More Time, the mostly-acoustic ballad that’s very overtly about the tragedies that have both plagued blink-182’s career and brought them back together. It’s a song that’s easy to get choked up by, especially if this band’s roller coaster of a trajectory has meant something to you over the years, and things got even more sentimental when nostalgic footage of Mark, Tom and Travis was projected onto the screen as they were playing it. When they finished it off and Mark said “see you next time,” it felt like an assured promise, and it hit hard after a song about all the times when it seemed like a “next time” may never come.
Watch some fan-shot videos from the show and check out the full setlist below. All remaining tour dates here.
blink-182 @ Citi Field – 7/21/24 Setlist
Feeling This
The Rock Show
Man Overboard
Aliens Exist
DANCE WITH ME
Obvious
Bored to Death
EDGING
Up All Night
MORE THAN YOU KNOW
M+M’s
Stay Together for the Kids
Not Now
Can’t Go Back
I Miss You
Down
When Your Heart Stops Beating (+44 song)
There Is (Box Car Racer song)
FUCK FACE
ANTHEM PART 3
Always
What’s My Age Again?
First Date
All the Small Things
Dammit (with Mark singing Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”)
ONE MORE TIME
