Blink-182 – Molson Canadian Amphitheatre – Toronto – August 21, 2016
By Nicole Ireland
Photos by Andrew Hartl
It’s going to be cringe-worthy but I just have to say it, Sunday, August 21 was a day to remember. Blink-182 completely rocked the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre and I’m still coming down from my concert high.
DJ Spider was the first opener, and he pleasantly surprised me. I didn’t know what I’d expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting him to play mid-2000s pop-punk classics that everyone knew all of the words to. It was a super fun way to start off the evening and it got me pumped up for the bands.
The night’s line-up of bands could not have been better for me. All Time Low makes my inner 15-year-old girl go completely bananas, A Day to Remember is one of my favourite bands, and I firmly believe that the men of Blink-182 are absolute legends. Long story short: this article is full of bias, but at least I acknowledge the bias.
All Time Low is always very consistent. They were high energy and they made a lot of penis jokes, as per usual. While you’d think the jokes would get old, somehow they manage to find the appropriate ratio of onstage banter to actual music playing. Since their set was fairly short, they mostly stuck to playing the big hits that everyone knows. I had absolutely no problem with that because nothing gets better than belting out the lyrics to “Dear Maria, Count Me In” no matter how popular it is.
I don’t have much to say about A Day to Remember other than the fact that they killed it. They always hit the stage with so much intensity and without fail I always leave their set with a very sore neck from head-banging too hard. I thought they were a slightly odd pairing with All Time Low and Blink-182 since they’re definitely on the heavier side of pop punk, but I totally think it worked. All three bands are so energetic that while ADTR’s music was pretty different, their energy levels were on par with the other bands so the momentum just kept building all night.
When Blink finally came on stage the crowd was so loud that if you closed your eyes you would have thought you were at a Justin Bieber concert (I have experienced both, I can confirm this statement). It was unbelievable. I was also very interested to see the range of people that came out to see this band. There were a bunch of teenagers who were likely there for ATL and ADTR, or who are just getting into Blink-182; there were endless amounts of twenty-somethings who discovered Blink just before their teen years when they needed angsty pop-punk the most; and there were people in their 30s and 40s who were longtime fans of the band.
I think they did a fantastic job of playing the classic songs that everyone loves, but also playing a bunch of the new tracks from California. This may be an unpopular opinion because I know that people typically care to see the classics, but I loved hearing the new stuff live. They seemed really exciting to be playing those songs and I was really excited to get to hear them.
The biggest highlight of Blink’s set for me was definitely experiencing “I Miss You” live. That song was an absolute anthem of the mid-2000s and it was the coolest thing to hear it live with a few thousand other people who also have a lot of love for this song. As I said before, I think of Blink as legendary. This was one of the songs that solidified that for me and as this was my first time seeing the band live, it was out of this world.
A very big thank you to Blink-182 for making all of my teenage dreams come true. From the openers to the set list, I had one hell of a nostalgia trip. Fun was had, lyrics were shouted, and everybody still likes me because I’m not 23.
