 With
the 24th night of the European leg of the delayed
Blink-182 20th anniversary tour kicking off at
Cardiff's Motorpoint on the 10th of July and a
crowd eagerly queuing out the door and round the
corner tonight was set to be a great show.
Sadly due to some issues at the ticket office
we almost completely missed the set of Welsh Post-Hardcore
band The Blackout performing their second gig
of the tour. Entering the main hall of the arena
just in time to catch the last song of the set
"Higher and Higher", the first single
off the bands most recent album "Hope".
With Sean Smith getting the crowd to sing the
"Woo" part of the pre chorus, as well
as jumping up and down along with the rhythm.
Having seen The Blackout at least three times
this year across a variety of stages, they have
never failed to disappoint with the ability to
transfer their energy to the crowd as well as
throw in what can only be described as banter.
Not to mention a constantly well performed tight
set with the strong vocals coming though well.
From what brief portion of the set we heard today
it's seemed to be no exception to their high level
performances, only lacking the Hyro da Hero's
guest vocals not quite being filled by Sean Smith
and Gavin Butler .
 As
it came time for All American Rejects to take
the stage the lights went down and were welcomed
with a huge scream from the crowd, showing the
true size of this tour as All American Rejects
are clearly a headline act. As Tyson Rittler bellows
out the opening lines of "Affection"
followed by Scott Chesak playing the piano section,
both engulfed in soft red lights it became apparent
that they had no intention of treating this like
a supporting slot and nor did the fans. "Dirty
Little Secret" followed, with the crowd singing
back at the top of their lungs, jumping up and
down and a lot of bobbing around on stage from
Tyson, Nick Wheeler and Mike Kennerty. The lights
stayed fairly simple but fit well, the vocals
were good, with the tracks sounding like a heavier
version  of
the CD. Having seen these at Birmingham on the
16th of June, I wasn't looking forward to them
as they failed to live up to "Tornado"
the bands 2006 live DVD. This being before Tyson's
infection and resulting problems that clearly
impacted his behaviour on stage, whilst he still
looked pretty out of it at this show, he seemed
to reel in the annoying behaviour from Birmingham
by keeping the crowd interaction short and sweet.
Asking the crowd "Are you ready to party?"
and pressing after the first response for more
before saying "it's time to play one from
the past" when they broke into "Swing
Swing" with Tyson playing bass for the first
time tonight. "Falling Apart" followed
by "Kids In The Street" which involved
the use of neon lights around the instruments,
in the same way as the video. As they played though
the rest of the set "Walk on me", "It
Ends Tonight", "Move Along" and
"Gives You Hell" with Tyson occasionally
playing bass but often residing in the roll of
simply vocals occasionally doing unusual dances
or singing facing the drummer. The overall sound
was good, with the  drums
and vocals close to CD and the guitars as with
most pop punk a bit heavier. The band had a good
energy on stage, spoke to the crowd briefly between
songs and made a few jokes such as saying "it's
not a coincidence that Blinks tour was delayed
two years until the Rejects had an opening, they
were waiting for us to be free". It's rare
that the support act can get the crowd singing
along to every song, jumping up and down, or clapping
with their hands in the air without any effort,
but that's exactly what they did. The air at one
point was even full of inflated condoms, and to
be honest, they made up for the disappointment
of Birmingham so if you had seen them on another
night and they weren't great then don't let it
damage your opinion too much because they pulled
it together by the time they made it to Cardiff
and for around £32.00 a ticket you could
leave pretty happy.
 Surprise
surprise Blink-182 scored five out of five, but
for all those who didn't make it to see them don't
think it's because its Blink-182 and it's a given.
With many fans thinking they'd never get a chance
to see them after the break up in 2005, the expectations
being off the chart, any fault would almost ruin
the idealistic view built up in the imagination
over the years and further rooted by the reformation.
And Blink-182 truly pulled out all the stops,
there is only one way anyone can be disappointed
by them, their lack of appearance in "American
Pie Reunion" (sorry for those who haven't
seen it). As a large black curtain was drawn up
to cover the stage there were screams, and the
lights soon went down, which was met by one of
the most deafening screams I've ever heard at
a concert repeated again as the first note of
"Feeling This" was struck and the curtain
dropped. At this point the air was full of  phones
and camera's with flashes going off regularly.
The two large projector screens either side of
the stage came into play for the first time of
the night, playing a highly contrasted black and
white video footage from the camera's inside the
arena. Similarly to All American rejects the sounds
was slightly heavier than the CD though for "Feeling
This" Tom DeLonge's guitar was slightly to
low and partly drowned out by the powerful rhythm
section and singing crowd. Moving on to "Up
All Night" off of Neighborhoods, with the
3rd screen at the back of the stage showing the
side of buildings in the style of the album cover.
The black and white style of lights and video
continued as Blink played though "Up All
Night" "The Rock show", "What's
My Age Again" and "Down" with the
white of the video occasionally being replaced
by static. Blink playing fantastically with Travis
Barker's assault on the drums, with the vocals
still managing just to climb above the volume
of the crowd. With Mark Hoppus and Tom walking
around and bopping along, combined with a Jr version
of Pink Floyd or Muse's complex light and video
setup, showed a maturity to Blink's show. But
don't worry they still managed to get in a few
childish and crude comments between the songs
such as Mark say "You have to calm the F***
down, you can't have this much fun" and later
in the set after a crude joke saying "I'm
pulling out all the classics here and I'm not
really getting the reaction I was hoping for.
I would expect you all to have applauded".
With the sound incredible and a quick  bit
of chat between songs the question remains with
six albums of material, one of which is fairly
new, how do you not disappoint your fans? To which
the answer was obviously to perform 23 tracks
with the added bonus of competing with the Foo
Fighters for longest set. This being part of the
reason for the short gap between songs, playing
through some classics "I Miss You",
"Dumpweed" and "Always" as
the lights branched out from the one colour set
and a load of new lights descended from the back
of the stage, acting like mini search lights almost
resembling an octopus feeling out an area and
further adding to the Pink Floydesque nature of
the show. During "Violence" Tom sung
the first verse twice apparently having messed
the song up all tour, the sound also saw a fantastic
harmony with Mark. They continued to play though
"After Midnight", "First Date"
with a seamless transition into "Heart's
All Gone", "Man Overboard", "Ghost
On The Dancefloor" in much the same way,
absolutely flawlessly with entertaining lights
and Travis fitting in some of his unbelievable
drum fills and at one point even a few twirls
from Tom. After playing "All The  Small
Things" during which the crowd managed to
sing even louder, Mark made a speech about the
incredible fan support over the past 20 years,
before the lights dropped and they left the stage.
A few minutes later a spotlight hit the sound
board near the back of the room, where a mini
stage had been set up for a short acoustic set.
As Mark started playing "Reckless Abandon"
the camera's and phones took to the air again,
with people singing as people crammed as close
as they could. Tom let the crowd take the first
line of the final pre-chorus. They rounded off
the acoustic set with "Wasting Time"
off their first album. Straight after they left
the mini stage, Travis kicked in with "Can
A Drummer Get Some" off his solo album "Give
The Drummer Some" as a drum solo that should
make any drummer feel inadequate. It's difficult
to explain what a Travis drum solo it like but
it's easily among the best I've seen and he adds
in some stick tricks to top it off. With Blink
pulling out all the stops to make this one of
the best  shows
I've probably ever seen, All American Rejects
weren't the only act better than at Birmingham.
As Mark and Tom returned to the stage for "Carousel",
"Dammit" it was almost time for the
show to end with "Family Reunion" and
a quick cover of part of Justin Bieber's "Baby"
and "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
before leaving Mark on stage for the "Grand
Finale" of one chord played repeatedly before
doing the rock symbol in with one hand. With the
longest and one of the best sets I've ever seen
over, as well as some fantastic support I think
that show was easily worth the wait, and it begs
what are people like Lady Gaga doing charging
£50 for a ticket because that would be extremely
hard to top. It's also clear as to why so many
people have gone to multiple shows on the tour
because I could have happily seen them again the
next day.
All American Rejects – 4/5
Blink 182– 5/5
Review By Marc Rich
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