Review: KJEE Summer Round-Up at the Santa Barbara Bowl

Blink -182 Headlines Four Band Bill on Wednesday, September 18

The Santa Barbara Bowl welcomed headliners Blink-182 for the 9th Annual KJEE Summer Round-Up last week, which featured a lineup of alternative rocks groups including Atlas Genius, New Politics and New Beat Fund.

Following the three groups’ performances, Blink-182 opened their set with a punchy, and just as lively as ever, performance of “Feeling This,” carrying the crowd into a frenzy of chorus singing. But while the aging rockers — all now in their late thirties and early forties — delivered a pretty polished, high-energy performance of this skate rock anthem, their next step was more of a falter. Together the trio gave a tired performance of their 1999 hit “What’s My Age Again?” and the crowd seemed equally unresponsive.

Still, the group delivered feisty performances of other nostalgia-inducing hits, like “Down,” “I Miss You,” and “First Date.” Even while admitting to drinking “enough vodka to suppress the symptoms of being sick,” singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge pulled through solidly, delivering those impassioned, teen angst-y vocals that we’ve come to associate with the Warped Tour brand of alternative punk rock acts. And the rest of the band seemed to rally behind DeLonge’s vocals; drummer Travis Barker gave a lengthy solo midway through the set and singer-bassist Mark Hoppus leaped around the stage during almost every track.

As the trio’s lively antics lifted the mood, the pit full of fans gradually got rowdy. With fans chanting the chorus and giving some of their strongest cheers during and after the band’s performance of “Man Overboard,” DeLonge applauded the audience’s energy, proclaiming, “All the punkers in L.A. can suck their d***s … you guys are doing a great job!”

The whole thing climaxed with Blink’s performance of “All the Small Things,” which they followed by the older — and less popular—“Josie,” which threatened to end the whole thing on a lukewarm note. But just moments after leaving the stage, the band reappeared for a dramatic encore featuring three tracks, including “Dammit” and the show’s closer — the profanity-packed, 40-second-long track “Family Reunion.” But noticeably, and rather disappointingly, missing from the set list was one of the band’s greatest hits, “Adam’s Song.”