Blink 182 in Brixton

It's become the annual tradition for me to go see Blink 182 perform just days before I move out of one house and into another. What a better way to set off on the right foot than to listen to what I would classify as the best m0th3rfxck!n band out there, the one I listen to for hours and hours on repeat during every run in the morning, who's work I have memorized in its entirety, are the only 3 celebrities I've ever paid attention to with any interest, and the one and only band so much I've seen them 3 years in a row now. Because naturally when I hear they were touring Europe I had to go. Not optional. Heck, I would've gone to every show they did in London this summer if I had the cash.

After selling out every show on the tour they tacked two London shows at a smaller venue at the end. And according to the seller's website it was an open floor plan inside this venue, the O2 Academy Brixton. The Academy is one of London's leading music venues, nightclubs and theater and has hosted a range of leading rock acts since becoming a music venue in 1983. Wondering if last year's show in Detroit could possibly be beatable in terms of awesomeness, since we'd been handed two random tickets from people who couldn't use them to move to the front of the giant amphitheater and be within rows from the stage, I booked two tickets planning on being able to bash our way to the front of a small venue with no seating and REALLY be up close.

Brixton Academy

So two months after I booked the day finally arrived. We cut across south London on the wonderfully air-conditioned Overground on one of the remotely few hot, hot, hot sunny days we'd had this summer. It was so hot I had to abandon my black skinny jeans and Chucks for stupid shorts and slip-ons. But not to be discouraged, we arrived in Brixton with hours to spare. Dank, dirty, oily Brixton. I had no idea it was so much like inner-city Cleveland, meaning a dreadful place where I was, in fact, the minority by far. There are few spots in London I've found, in all my wanderings, that I really didn't like and mostly it was just for the fact it was too dirty and sleazy to be tolerable. I mean, ANYWHERE I go I avoid touching anything – London is just a dirty, crowded city where everything has a film of grime that's been accumulating since the beginning of time – but this place, Brixton, I didn't even want to let my feet touch the ground, it was that filthy. 

When my phone refused to connect to the internet we scoped out a scalper to ask for directions to the Academy. Two blocks away from the station, this place was sort of down a side street and, like most theaters, looks smaller from the outside than it does inside. Since this is Britain there was, as expected, a giant queue already with most people sitting on that filthy ground alongside the wall of the venue that ran down a back street alley. I had to force myself not to think about the nastiness accumulating on their collective trousers and palms and purses as they lackadaisically sat about. *It was at this moment I realized I’m fully an adult. In fact, I no longer even wanted to be part of the little emo crowd I'd once belonged to any more. Transcendence in the weirdest of circumstances.* Every so often the line would condense unexpectedly during the following two hours. Meanwhile, people walked past handing out event fliers or asked for donations to charities or for spare change for the homeless.

Blink 182 Europe 2012 Tour Trailer

7PM the doors opened and I had my camera confiscated at the door. The first time I’ve never been allowed a camera at a concert. God forbid we take photos. If that's the problem they'd need to confiscate every cell phone, as well. Then two things happened. I realized the site I'd used for booking was garbage, as was the event website, because there most certainly WAS theater seating (From Wikipedia, it says RIGHT THERE: "As one of the biggest non-arena venues in London"...dammit) AND half up it was up on a frickin' balcony! And naturally, having tried to avoid that very thing, ended up sitting up there anyway. The second thing was that plenty of people had giant cameras and all around us they were flashing photos. Admittedly, I sulked for a while. Through the whole opening act, actually. Lower Than Atlantis, that's who opened. British boy band that I’d never heard of; all their stuff sounded the same. In a huff, I was at least able to console myself with the knowledge that I'd be hearing rock gods in just a few more minutes...even if it wasn't going to be from the front row, smashed into the barricade at the edge of the stage.

They opened with 'Feelin' This' and despite the fact the people in the balcony had to remain seated it was pretty intense...well, as intense as it can be while you're sitting. Normally it's physiologically impossible to be excited while sitting but they always explode with energy, those Blink guys. So even though I wasn't close enough to catch another drum stick I was able to sing along without feeling the need to take photos of every event on stage. I was able to literally sit back and enjoy the entertainment without a single distraction.

Blink goes acoustic!!

blink-182 'Going Away to College' & 'Dick Lips' Acoustic Live Brixton Academy 25-07-2012

The concert was divided into three segments. The first one was the longest with all the songs you'd expect, plus three off their newest album. Then – and this was insanely fantastic – they reassembled the stage to do an acoustic set of songs which they apparently did not do at any other gig (which I know because people were all a-Twitter-ing), and which haven't been recorded, as far as I’m aware, ever before as acoustics. So it was like this middle segment was an entirely novel bit of musical magic! The third set began with Travis's one-off drum solo, Can The Drummer Get Some, which is always pure energy and borderline mental.

We got lucky, too, because they had to cancel the final show the following night because Mark was diagnosed with an all-consuming, phlemmed-up sinus condition. So we literally caught the last show on the tour. Afterward, they were basically giving t-shirts and merch away out on the street so I coughed up a tenner for a black, logo-emblazoned tour T. Exhausted, but smiling, I made the ride home singing the songs over in my head to the beat of the bass that still pounded in my eardrums.