April 13, 2006

  • April 12, 2006. The Glass House at Pomona, California. First ever concert for the band "Angels & Airwaves," which is Blink182's Tom Delonge's new band. Me and my friend were lucky enough to be able to attend that concert. We were also excited to see Tom Delonge again ever since we saw them last in concert when he was still doing Blink182.

    The overall crowd that were there for the band definitely did NOT look like a Blink182 crowd though. Especially with all the black shirts and moody "emo" hairstyles with long bangs hanging over their sullen faces. Considering that Tom's new band doesn't exactly sound like a Blink182 type pop-punk band, I guess that shouldn't be surprising. After one drink at the yesteryears bar across the street, the opening act called "the Pink Spiders" started at 8:30pm. They played a little over a half hour; sounded decent but nothing great, and after a 30mins or so break, Angels & Airwaves took the stage.

    We got to hear several of the other songs they have in their upcoming debut album. The current single out right now is "the adventure," and the rest of their songs don't sound that much different from that. Their sound is pretty much Blink182 plus influences from U2 and a heavy dose of EMO type lyrics. There were some that weren't as memorable as they probably intend to be, but there were several that have great potential. I'm sure they would probably sound a lot better on the CD itself. They did play two Blink182 songs though, which was part of "Down" and ..... forgot what the other one was.

    I guess I have to mention that Tom Delonge is a little...different than when he was with Blink182. Tom was acting a lot more serious than when he was doing potty humor with Blink182. He said a lot of things about how we should "feel the music," or how "you can do whatever you want to if you put your mind to it," and even alluded to saying that if we wanted to, we could walk on water. Even the stage had white flags lined on the sides, which was rather...odd. Yeah, he was sounding almost pretentious being all insightful, motivational, and thought provoking. Did he pull a complete change when he left Blink? Not quite, because at certain pauses between some of the songs, he did revert back to his old joking self which was surprisingly very refreshing to see. But he did still end the whole show with another inspirational speech, which still makes me think that he is getting a big head about his new "direction" with the new band (which he BTW never even introduced his fellow band mates).

    oh, I found it amusing that the crowd was yelling "A-V-A," considering the initials for "Angels And Airwaves" are three A's. But then if you look at their logo, that should explain it....