Don’t let your need to feel hip get in the way. Blink 182 came to The Point and proved that they have it in spades. On the spot for hotpress.com: teenage rock aficionado, Rolo Black

Love is not too strong a word to describe what I feel for the three Orange County men! I know that isn’t going to be a popular thing to say to your average HP reader, but music shouldn’t just be about fashion and what it’s cool to like.

Picture this: having warmed the seats well for Blink 182, Sugarcult finish their set with a storming ‘Bouncing Off The Walls’. The curtains are drawn, when suddenly a man emerges waving a Blink flag. Game on! The boys break into a stunning rendition of ‘Feeling This’, which begins Travis Barker’s night-long impression of El Hadj Diouf playing in a Merseyside derby. This wonderful display – of spitting lesdt you’re in doubt – lasts the whole show, and ends with the stage covered in saliva.

The boys go through the highlights of their latest album early on, playing ‘Violence’, ‘I Miss You’ and ‘Obvious’. Then come the Blink reliables, including ‘The Rock Show’, ‘What’s My Age Again?’, ‘Mutt’, ‘First Date’, ‘Going Away To College’ and a superb version of ‘Dumpweed’.

As the show builds to a climax, Tom deLonge becomes conspiratorial: “We played this song in London a few nights ago and they didn’t get this song…” (straight out of the episode of The Simpsons with Spinal Tap, that)… “they found it too slow and long, so try extra hard to get it…

“A long time ago, before most of you were born, back in the mid-‘90s, people used to raise their lighters in the air for slow, sad songs and it would set the mood – but this many people and all those lighters isn’t very fire conscious, so as we’re nearly in 2005, this being the technological era, everyone take out your mobile phones and let the lights brighten the arena.”

And they do and – my god – this is one of the most magical things I’ve ever seen. It’s truly breathtaking.

They follow that incredible moment with their biggest hit, and the biggest crowd-pleaser in the Blink 182 arsenal, ‘All The Small Things’.

There are three other highlights I must mention. They play an absolutely divine version of ‘Carosel’, an old classic. They also play ‘Josie’, my favourite Blink song – as it unfurls, I get the same feeling as I do, listening to ‘Let’s Get It On’ by Marvin Gaye, ‘Werewolves Of London’ by Warren Zevon, ‘Girl I’m Gonna Fuck You Up’ by Republic Of Loose or ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ by Bob Dylan. It’s that good.

And finally, there’s this: towards the end of the show, the lights go down and the music gradually comes to a halt. Just as it’s about to stop, Travis emerges as if from nowhere, in the centre of the arena and proceeds to play a brilliantly inventive five minute drum solo, right there in the middle of the crowd. Genius.

Overall, it’s an inspired performance, which lasts about five times longer than Kanye West’s gig at The Point – with possibly the best drummer in the world to watch at close range into the bargain. People, please, next time you think of Blink 182, do not immediately associate them with a band like Sum 41 – instead try Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.

Indisputably, they’re the real thing.