“I want honesty: are we hotter because we play musical instruments?” said blink-182’s Tom DeLonge mid-performance yesterday night. “That’s the only reason we started this.”
blink-182 delivered a captivating and at times vulgarly humorous set at Austin City Limits Music Festival weekend two. The three members Tom DeLonge, Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus proved they hadn’t grown up from their 90s punk rock personas while a crowd of young and old fans egged them on. Fans in various tour t-shirts pushed through crowds hours before the performance, making their way towards the front of the packed crowd.
Hoppus said the ACL show marked the 123rd show of their “One More Time Tour” and the last show of their North American leg. The tour supports their 2023 album ONE MORE TIME…, which followed the band’s reconciliation after bassist and vocalist Hoppus’ lymphoma diagnosis in 2021.
Opening strong with “Feeling This,” “The Rock Show” and multiple series of fireworks, the band demonstrated its ability to energize a crowd after 32 years of rock shows through banter between the band and talented musical presentation.
Hoppus specifically spoke to his Austin audience, wearing a Juan in a Million restaurant t-shirt, leading the crowd in singing “The stars at night are big and bright …” and shouting, “The University of Oklahoma can suck a dick!”
“Mark will do anything to get his dick sucked. … UFOs are real,” DeLonge said in response.
Despite their stage personas remaining immature and as impressive as ever, blink-182’s newest album addresses more serious issues, such as in “ANTHEM PART 3,” which fans screamed along to at the show.
“This next song is about Blink-182 starting from day one up to today,” Hoppus said. “The highs and the lows, the arguments, the friendships, the reconciliation — this song is about us.”
Throughout the show, fans screamed, danced and bounced balloons — seeming to drown out Chris Stapleton’s performance on the other side of the park. They finished as loud as they began with a rendition of “Dammit” in which Hoppus tied a few lines of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” in the bridge.
The band played “ONE MORE TIME” as the show’s encore with old footage of the band together over the years playing across the screen behind them under low lights. Making sure not to tarnish their unserious reputation, after the band bowed and left the stage, “Baby Shark” blared from the speakers.
