Blink-182 Review: Travis Barker's Drumming Is the Real Star of the Show

As pop punk sees a resurgence, so have the subgenre's most well-known purveyors in Blink-182.

Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker had a wildly successful world tour last year, and are riding that wave with the One More Time Tour, which came to Ball Arena on June 27 with opener Pierce the Veil. The venue was packed, with many audience members appearing as though they'd stepped out of a time machine straight from 2003, with Vans slip-ons, Etnies, cargo shorts and many Warped Tour T-shirts.

That was also the case with DeLonge and Hoppus, who still exchange the same sophomoric banter that is just as funny now as it was in the early 2000s (read: It's cringy as hell). That's the SoCal suburban skater-punk attitude that made Johnny Rotten call the group a "comedy act." And while many other punk-rockers have accused Blink of selling out, it's worth noting that the band's fans are still eager to buy in. The sheer volume of screaming and singing along at Ball Arena made that very clear.
But for all the multi-platinum albums and awards, the best thing to ever happen to the band is Barker, without a doubt. The drummer joined up in 1998 after Scott Raynor's departure, having opened for Blink-182 on its tour that year with ska-punk group the Aquabats. The first album he was on, Enema of the State, is what shot the band to international stardom in 1999.

At Ball Arena, there weren't any memorable guitar solos from DeLonge or bass licks from Hoppus, but there was
an intense array of sprawling drum solos. It's as if Hoppus and DeLonge have accepted that Barker is the band's bastion: The stage was centered around the drum set, and for several songs, Barker was suspended in the air above the two as he unleashed on his kit as an indisputable overlord of the band. He's an indefatigable human metronome, driving each of the band's songs and providing a needed technical prowess to supplement otherwise monotonous chord structures.

As fireworks burst out from around the drums, the crowd went wild...and stayed wild all night. The band finished off the set with a burst of hits, including "What's My Age Again?," "First Date" and "All the Small Things." In a refreshing turn of events, the bandmates didn't feign walking off the stage before an expected encore: "We're not walking off; here's the encore," Hoppus yelled, before the group launched into the title track of its latest album, One More Time.

See photos of the show below: Find more concerts in Denver on our concert calendar.