Blink-182 Glasgow review - 'sporadically fun'

Blink-182 | Calum Buchan

Blink-182, Hydro, Glasgow ★★★

There comes a time in every ageing bro-dude’s life when he must abandon the locker room banter that was barely tolerable even in his twenties. Failure to do so will make him come across as a middle-aged embarrassment.

Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge from American pop-punk stalwarts Blink-182 have not yet reached that point of autumnal reflection, nor may they ever. Their attempts at humour on Thursday night were excruciating.

To be fair to Hoppus, who these days resembles the Reverend Simon Mayo, he did at least look slightly uncomfortable while indulging in forced, tedious, penis-obsessed badinage with the overgrown Beavis/Butthead amalgam DeLonge. It was rather sad.

Blink-182 | Calum Buchan

Meanwhile, musclebound drummer Travis Barker sensibly kept his mouth shut to concentrate on being an absolute powerhouse behind the kit. He’s quite something.

I didn’t want or expect any kind of – ugh – musical maturity from a band whose entire raison d'être is to convey arrested development agony and ecstasy in short, sharp bursts of occasionally quite catchy, punk-adjacent bubblegum. But I didn’t expect to inwardly wince whenever they opened their mouths to speak.

Did their young fans care? They did not. They had a whale of a time, and I’m genuinely glad about that. Perhaps they just chose to ignore the awkward “How do you do, fellow kids?” vibes, lest it dim their enjoyment. I’d probably do the same at their age.

The fact that Blink-182 – a sporadically fun, mostly unexceptional and ultimately inoffensive bunch of journeymen - appeal to kids who weren’t born when they were a ubiquitous MTV presence in the ‘00s makes sense, because they’re shiny corporate pop-punk godfathers who have influenced practically every single band those kids love.

I just hope those kids have a higher standard of wit.

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