For no reason other than to make it an all-day event (and maybe to snag some limited edition merch), my friend Jimmy and I were the first to arrive at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater on September 17th. After a long day of sitting in lawn chairs under umbrellas and chugging gallon-bottles of water, the line condenses, security gets tighter, and finally the gates swing open.
In order to avoid Asher Roth, we wandered around the venders, entering to win Travis’s car and buying $6 sodas. To no avail, we wandered to our seats just before Asher came on stage. The general feeling of the crowd was pretty hostile and they seemed annoyed at the disturbance of his party-hard MC act. He played the only song I know—“I Love College”—as the third song in his set and I thought it a bit too early into the set, but it turned out to be his last song. Three songs for Asher… I almost felt a bit bad for him. As someone texted to the venue’s marquee “Asher, would you like some epic with that fail?”
Next on the docket: Taking Back Sunday. These guys are one of those bands that I’ve always known, always heard around, I even know a couple of songs, but I never really got into. They put on a good stage performance, with lots of mic swinging. Adam Lazzara must practice with the swinging a lot because he was quite a trickster and there were multiple times I thought he’d hit guitarist Matthew Fazzi in the face, but didn’t. They played the song of theirs that everyone loves—“Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut From the Team)”—and half the crowd sang it at the top of their lungs. After a rockin’ and sweaty set, Taking Back Sunday relinquished the stage to Weezer in a big round of applause.
It seemed as though the entire crowd (at least those sitting) were on the edge of their seat because the moment Weezer took over the stage, everyone was on their feet. Cheering at a stage full of men in white track suits seemed a little odd, but the moment they started playing, the scene fell into place. Their set choices could not have been better. They played an excellent mix of old and new, including all of my favorites.
Now Blink. Oh, Blink. One of my favorite bands. Because of the nature of their break-up (mostly a conflict between Mark and Tom), throughout the show I was nervous that Mark’s familiar fun-poking at Tom would cause a break-up repeat. The two hugged at the opening of the show, a rehearsed (but not insincere) sign of their rekindled friendship, however at every “Shut up, Tom” out of Mark’s mouth and at Tom’s “Fuck Obama!” (to which Mark had a disapproving WTF face) I cringed a little out of worry. It was amazing, though, to see Mark and Tom joking around like old times—lots jokes about being gay for each other and jerking off.
About the music, Blink has never sounded so good and the set was amazing. Have you ever been to a show where every song you thought, “OMG this is my favorite!” Okay, so I may have dorked out a bit but the best of Blink—“Rock Show,” “Damnit,” “Violence,” and so on—would be hard-pressed not to do the same. Near the end of the show, Travis did a drum solo while his kit ascended, swung from the ceiling, and rotated until Travis was at a 90-degree angle with the floor. And, as always, his performance was still flawless. Blink’s music seemed to only benefit from their years apart, as they all refined their skills and cleaned up their sound in +44 and Angels and Airwaves. The show was fantastic.
As we were all fleeing the stadium in hopes of escaping the parking lot in a reasonable amount of time (which I didn’t) we were stopped to make way for the tour vans to leave. Out of one leaned Mark as it drove by and he waved at everyone and shouted “thank you.” Talented and nice. The perfect pair. An amazing trio.
