Well folks, the wait is over: Blink-182 is officially back! The reunited pop-punk legends ushered in their return with a surprise set at Coachella last night.
The event marked the band’s first return to the stage since vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge rejoined Blink-182 in October. The trio of DeLonge, vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker, announced their appearance just a few days before the festival was to take place.
The 18-song set, which was also the trio’s first concert since Mark Hoppus’ 2021 cancer diagnosis, was filled to the brim with anthemic hits like All The Small Things, Feeling This, The Rock Show, I Miss You, First Date, and What’s My Age Again. The Coachella performance also featured the first rendition of the song Aliens Exist with DeLonge in over two decades.
The triumphant return of DeLonge to the Blink-182 fold puts an end to months of speculation that he had reunited with the band. Following Delonge’s 2015 departure, Blink-182 recruited Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba to fill the vacancy. This recalibrated incarnation of the band recorded two acclaimed albums, 2016’s California and 2019’s Nine. No songs from either record were performed during last night’s set.
In a recent interview with Vulture, Skiba mentioned that Blink-182 had almost completed an album of new material, saying: “I don’t know if they’ll come out. I think they’re really good.”
Skiba continued: “There’s almost a whole album’s worth of stuff. It was supposed to be an EP, and it just kept going, and going. And now we have, I don’t know if they’re just going to get scrapped, but there’s eight or nine brand-new songs that are done. We basically finished those, and then Mark was diagnosed, if I’m getting the timeline correct.
“I hadn’t even thought about those recordings. But I have them. They’re good songs. I’ll keep them a secret. I’ll keep them safe forever. But we’ll see. I don’t know, maybe they’re something that we could open up and look at differently, or it’s something that’ll come out later, I have no idea.”
While the future of the Skiba album remains unclear, it looks like the DeLonge incarnation of Blink-182 are chipping away on new material, with the guitarist promising “best album we’ve ever made” in an Instagram post.
Check out the setlist and watch the performance below:
- Family Reunion
Anthem Part Two
The Rock Show
Man Overboard
Feeling This
Reckless Abandon
Dysentery Gary
What’s My Age Again?
EDGING (live debut)
Dumpweed
Aliens Exist (First time with Tom since 2001)
First Date (inc. Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop intro)
Don’t Leave Me
Down
Happy Holidays, You Bastard
I Miss You
All the Small Things
Dammit (inc. TLC No Scrubs tease)
I only paid for Twitter Blue so I could upload the entirety of Blink 182’s two-song finale at Coachella.
An absolutely incredible experience watching these three back on stage together. Wish I was there. So happy for them. pic.twitter.com/cFUAorMKIg
— Caleb Turner (@calebturner23) April 15, 2023
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