All the small things wrong with Blink 182 concert
Blink 182 is one of my favorite bands and has been for years.
Last Saturday I attended their concert in Denver at Coors
Amphitheatre, formally known as Fiddler’s Green. It was certainly a
good time, but failed to register as an awesome concert-going
experience.
I had seen the band perform twice before and always at the same
venue. Though they put on a pretty good show each time, the sound
quality tended to leave something to be desired. I was hoping the
third time would be the charm as I entered their concert last
Saturday, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
After an unimpressive performance by a new band called Taking
Back Sunday, which was followed up by a set by the painfully
out-of-place group Cypress Hill, the boys of Blink finally took the
stage and attempted to revive the show.
What poured out of the sound system was a chaotic blend of
incoherent noise. Even with the trained ears of a loyal fan, I
frequently had to strain my ears to try and decipher what song was
being played. Typically the song in question was made known to me
by my fellow concertgoers who were singing along once they
themselves figured out what they were in fact listening to.
If you didn’t know the words to the songs before the concert
started, you definitely weren’t going to learn them by the time the
evening was over. When an audible lyric managed to clearly slip
through the overpowering bass, it provided an ironic if short-lived
feeling of excitement.
One frustrated concertgoer in front of me sat down in anger
before the band’s opening song, “Feeling This,” had even completed.
He began to immaturely, yet understandably, pout, while remarking
on the poor sound quality.
Despite the fact that Blink 182’s most recent, 2003s self-titled
release, is far the most “grown up” of their repertoire, there
seemed to be more preteens and teen-agers at the concert than were
in attendance in years past. I overheard one such adolescent fan
talking on her cell phone to her mom on the way out exclaim, “It
was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”
Hopefully she will have her standards raised as she gets older,
however, if she was only referring to the visual portion of the
concert, then I can cut her some slack. In that department, the
concert was pretty impressive.
Blink 182 played against the backdrop of large shards of lighted
screens that alternated between glowing oranges and random video
clips. The visual highlight of the night, however, came when
drummer Travis Barker suddenly rose up from a concealed platform
among the crowd for an extended drum solo.
A fun, sign-of-the-times moment occurred when the band asked
everyone with cell phones to hold up their illuminated phones
instead of the traditional cigarette lighters. The sight of the
array of glowing screens across the crowd was pretty amazing to
see.
However Coors Amphitheatre failed to wow in the visual
department itself. The large screens on the sides of the stage that
are intended to give a better view to fans farther out in the
stands were in no way effective. Their dark images provided a sub
par and useless view of the concert, no matter where you were
located at the venue.
I was willing to put all complaints aside if my multiple,
valiant attempts to get backstage to meet/interview the band paid
off, however protocol overruled and I ended up ultimately being
denied access. The reason given was that it was too last minute to
be arranged. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t bolster enough
sympathy from those who stood in my way.
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