Going to a blink-182 show in 2023 is the musical equivalent of finding Neverland, where, for 90 minutes, all adulting is paused. As the second night of the pop punk band’s world reunion tour got underway Saturday in Chicago with an arsenal of cartoon video graphics, eighth-grade humor about STDs and the shape of hot dogs and mass singalongs rueing the pitfalls of childhood trauma and teenage heartbreak, it begged the question, “What’s our age again?”
Much of the United Center was filled with 40-somethings going on 14 who, over the course of the show (which repeats Sunday night), regressed to a time in the late ’90s when the California trio became the most prescribed antidote for coming-of-age woes that befell the MTV generation — and with it, helping birth a new era of mainstream pop punk.
