Review & setlist: Blink-182 refuse to act their age at Fenway Park

Blink-182's Fenway Park concert was a speed run through the trio's biggest hits, punctuated by fireworks and puerile humor.

Mark Hoppus of blink-182 performs at Fenway Park on July 23, 2024. Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox

July 25, 2024

Something was in the air at blink-182’s Fenway Park concert on Tuesday night. Anticipation, for one. The jingling of studded bracelets from Hot Topic, for another. Most of all, there was the stench of stale booze, as legions of elder millennials took advantage of an 8:30 start time to pre-game the ballpark show like they were 23 instead of 43.

As it turns out, thousands of screaming fans tipping back one too many $15 spiked seltzers provided the ideal atmosphere for Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker. Ostensibly a tour in support of blink’s new album “One More Time,” Tuesday’s show was instead primarily a speed run through the band’s biggest hits, turning the home of the Red Sox into a raucous, fireworks-filled sing-along. (One fan even climbed the Pesky Pole.)

@purelyboston
They might have to start greasing up the pole (sent via IG/t_costa23) #bostontiktok #fenwaypark #blink182
♬ original sound – purelyboston

The trio did manage to play a half-dozen songs off the 2023 album, starting with the peppy guitars of “Dance with Me” and capping off the night with the down-tempo title track, which details the ups and downs the band has faced between break-ups and hiatuses before their most recent reunification in 2022. “I wish they told us / It shouldn’t take a sickness / Or airplanes falling out the sky,” Hoppus sang, referring to his recent battle with cancer and the 2008 plane crash that nearly killed Barker.

Despite the emotional, introspective subject matter of many of blink’s songs, the trio kept the show breezy and irreverent. The band managed to play 26 songs in under 90 minutes, all while taking regular breaks for Hoppus and DeLonge to do crowd work that consisted entirely of making off-putting sexual comments that even Deadpool would call hackneyed.

Before starting one song, Hoppus or DeLonge (I honestly can’t remember which) simply said the phrase “Dirty Sanchez,” sans setup or punchline. “Hey, did you know they named the Boston cream pie after your mom?” asked the lead vocalist after another song, earning hearty guffaws from the guy behind me who moments earlier had loudly shared similarly ribald thoughts about Vice President Kamala Harris.

Drummer Travis Barker of blink-182 performs at Fenway Park July 23, 2024. – Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox

The only member who stayed silent was Barker, who let his stick work do the talking. It has long been apparent that the drummer is the most technically gifted member of the band, and blink-182’s live show appeared tailored to emphasize that fact. Barker’s drums occasionally drowned out the mix, especially in the early half of the show on tracks like “Feelin’ This” and “The Rock Show.”

Later on in the set, Barker boarded a hydraulic lift to drum high above the crowd, blasting the audience with the thrum of his bass drum until fittingly returning to Earth at the end of “Down.”

For three men who were all born before Ronald Reagan was elected president, wasting precious concert time joking about “Dunkin’ my nuts in your mom” seems a bit cringe. But as Hoppus sang in “What’s My Age Again,” “No one should take themselves so seriously / With many years ahead to fall in line.” Or, put more succinctly by DeLonge during one of the group’s many riff sessions: “It’s called being stupid, look into it.”

Maybe I will, Tom. Maybe I will.