Blink 182, Green Day & Jimmy Eat World

Although the air outside was the sublime temperature of Central Valley spring, the oppression present at Sunday's Northern California date of the somewhat aptly titled Pop Disaster Tour lie in other, more nefarious aspects. Most obvious of these were of course the seemingly endless squadrons of middle-teen mall punks (as opposed to 21-year-old mall punks such as myself) who swarmed about in a ceaseless din of chatter and cell phone abuse. The snaking line of those awaiting entrance to the gaping maw that is the former Sacramento Valley Ampitheatre could have easily been confused for a gigantic Pac Sun runway model show. Although while in this line, I assumed that these gangs of giggling teens would do no more harm than to comparatively make me seem out of place, I would later find myself to be wrong in this assumption.
Upon entrance, my assistant and I found our place in front of the stage, sticking out like aged redwoods amongst an endless sea of saplings. Jimmy Eat World mounted the stage to a rather eager rain of cheers from the milling crowd. Concentrating almost solely on material from Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World seemed to my eyes like a band better suited to back rooms and basements then the huge expanse of stage offered at The Autowest. Unfortunately, they did maintain a trait present in many arena-size bands (including the headliner of the evening) in that they seemed to struggle against the might of their studio work when playing live. The vocal harmonies and subtle musical elements that made Bleed American so great were unfortunately in short supply in J.E.W's live set. They did still put on a good show. My assistant, not having been so overly familiar with the studio sound of J.E.W. found their set quite enjoyable. Similarly, the one song that I didn't know had much the same effect on me. Hesitating to call their set sub-par, I would rather attribute my disappointment to overly high expectations.
After what seemed like an eon of stage setting and lighting adjustments, Green Day took to the stage, sporting a new (and unnamed) rhythm guitarist, and rocking a cut off of their newest full-length Warning. Over the course of their hour and a half long set, Green Day played material from all four of their major-label releases (although only one song from the under-rated Insomniac), while only dipping into their pre-Dookie days for the crowd-requested "2000 Light Years Away." Green Day had the dominating stage presence of rock veterans, while still maintaining the edgy, honest, yet purposely simple pop-punk edge that catapulted them to rock-stardom in the mid-'90s and into the new millenium. The addition of a mariachi horn section in the latter part of the set, as well as the fiery pyrotechnics and light show were not unwelcome, however, they seemed like a mere distraction to the solid performances of the three members of Green Day (the anonymous guitarist seemed to come and go at random intervals during the show). These were not the only distractions present. As soon as Green Day began playing, the mob of barely-pubescent boys and girls seemed to descend like a plague upon the front of the floor where I was located. I found myself getting muscled out of the way by hell-bent 14-year-old girls in Abercrombie shirts who screamed "Billie Joe," like the mantra of a new religion. This, combined with the presence of a contingent of older chowders in the audience, and the high school girl that puked on my shoes, offered an altogether unpleasant countermeasure to the enjoyable performance of Green Day.
With the knowledge that the set change from Green Day to Blink 182 would more than likely take an equally ludicrous amount of time as the previous set change, my assistant and I made our way to a bench on the outer confines of the amphitheatre. From this vantage point the atmosphere seemed more like a county fair than a concert: kids and their parents buying hot dogs and beers in clear cups, and vendors hawking jewelry and fake tattoos. Ambling to the merch booth, we found the $25 t-shirts slightly out of our price range, leaving the buying to the deep-pocketed youths of the arena-punk scene.
The significant roar that began emanating from behind us marked the beginning of Blink 182's set. Making my way back to the floor area, I found the three cults of personality that constitute Blink 182 - Mark, Tom and Travis - busy doing what they do, belting out catchy, hook-ladened, punkified, pop-music. But from the beginning, it was clear that the Mark, Tom and Travis show was exactly that: a show. Underneath the often hilarious stage banter, exploding confetti cannons, and stacks of amplifiers, there is a rather hollow musical entity. Not that they made lots of mistakes or played their parts shoddily. But if Jimmy Eat World struggled against the might of their studio efforts, Blink 182 was absolutely swallowed whole by them. With the exception of the amazing drumming of Travis Barker, the other two members of Blink left much to be desired in the musical end of things. Mark Hoppus's bass stopped working halfway though the first song, and the crowd didn't even seem to notice. If the minions were rambunctious during the Green Day set, they were outright uncouth during Blink 182's. Adolescent girls mounted on shoulders displayed their budding breasts to the unending amusement of the members of the band. There were teenage girls doing interpretive dances with light sticks to the side of me, not even looking at the stage. Blink 182 could've danced along to their CD, making gross comments in between and garnered much the same adoration they were afforded Sunday night. In fact, to me this would have been preferable, as the live playing of Blink 182 left me with a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.
- Daniel Taylor

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