On April 14th, 2023, Coachella made history when the classic lineup of Blink 182 played its first show in almost a decade at the festival. The surprise reunion was announced just one day before the festival’s start and held in the Sahara Tent, causing a massive spillover of fans onto the adjacent field, which made it difficult for the diehard fans in front to properly colorful mosh.
The band had recently postponed the March 11 start of their reunion tour due to a finger injury that required surgery for drummer Travis Barker.
The reunion of the classic lineup came as a surprise to many, considering that guitarist and co-lead vocalist Tom DeLonge left Blink-182 in 2015, and the remaining members replaced him with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba and released two albums. However, fans never stopped hoping for a reunion of the classic lineup, which was finally announced in October 2022, after DeLonge reconnected with Mark Hoppus after Hoppus’s 2021 cancer diagnosis.
Before Blink’s performance, behind-the-scenes, documentary-style footage of the band’s reunion and band meeting was shown on the Sahara video screens.
By the time the trio made their grand entrance to Richard Strauss’s 2001: A Space Odyssey theme, the anticipation was running high. The band’s opening song was “Family Reunion,” a 36-second blast of George Carlin’s famous seven dirty words (plus three other unfit-to-print bonus expletives).
The band’s puerile buddy comedy act was still going strong, with their between-song stage banter still packed with jokes about vulvas, butts, balls, herpes, UTIs, and, just to be topical, the Coachella festival’s rumored “gnarly” Dalai Lama kissing booth.
During their performance, Blink-182 played a combination of classic hits and new songs. The setlist included “I Miss You,” “All the Small Things,” and a medley of “Dammit” with TLC’s “No Scrubs.” They also played the live debut of their reunion single “Edging,” a preview of their forthcoming comeback album, and the first time the band had played “Aliens Exist” with DeLonge since 2001. Another medley, “First Date” with the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” was also performed.
At one point, DeLonge graded his performance a C (or maybe a C+), but it seemed the crowd begged to differ. Fans of all ages, including millennials, xennials, and Gen-X’ers seeking a nostalgia fix, plus all the Gen Z kids who consider Blink-182 to be classic rock, were thrilled to see the band perform together once again.
The North American leg of Blink-182’s reunion tour began in May and ran through July, with Turnstile providing support (SEE THE DATES HERE).
If you’re feeling like a couch potato and missed the show, don’t you fret! Just grab some popcorn, sit back and check out some of the live videos from the gig. And hey, don’t worry if the camera shakes a bit, there were hundreds of smartphones out there trying to capture the magic.
