There’s something slightly redemptive about blink-182 headlining Reading today. Last time they stood on this stage a decade ago, they were touring an album some regard as a damp squib, and those in attendance didn’t have to squint to see the cracks in their foundation. Less than six months later, Tom DeLonge quit the band.
In the present moment, however, they’re just chuffed to be onstage together. “We will suck our collective dicks,” Mark Hoppus says in characteristically coarse fashion, “we’re so fucking good at what we do.” That’s easily apparent – with their wheels thoroughly greased from a long stretch of touring in the U.S., they zip through the hits with finesse, warmth and industrial quantities of fun, from rapturous opener Feeling This and sprightly newer cut DANCE WITH ME to a golden run of bangers in the form of What’s My Age Again, First Date, All The Small Things and Dammit.
There’s such joy to these songs that it almost washes away the sadness of closer ONE MORE TIME…, but perhaps it’s not such a bad thing when it would otherwise seem like an odd down note to wrap up with. Stay Together For The Kids isn’t treated with much sentimentality either – as the crowd raises their phone lights, Mark jokes that “every single one is a home you wrecked”. Nonetheless, it’s everything you want from a Friday night at a festival – a moment of collective, goofy euphoria. Really, this is the shiniest and happiest a band can be after three decades in the game. (EW)