SAN DIEGO — The Poway-bred pop-punk band blink-182 will replace Frank Ocean as the Sunday headliner for the closing night of the 2023 Coachella Valley Music & Arts festival’s second weekend.
The band will perform from 9 to 10:20 p.m. in the headlining slot on the festival’s Main Stage. As was the case last Sunday when Calvin Harris performed on the same stage after Ocean, Harris will close out the evening after blink, but not as the headliner.
The trio, which was formed in 1992, is scheduled to launch a reunion tour May 4 in Minnesota following its surprise set last Friday in the Sahara Tent, one of Coachella’s secondary stages.
Announced Thursday afternoon, blink’s move up to the festival’s main stage is an easy transition for them, at least logistically speaking. And the many sold-out dates on the band’s upcoming tour — which includes two June shows at Pechanga Arena San Diego in June — underscore the enduring appeal of blink’s energetic music and proudly sophomoric sense of humor.
The band has not performed with original guitarist and singer Tom DeLonge back on board since its 20th anniversary tour concluded in 2014. In the interim, bassist/singer Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker toured and recorded under the blink moniker with Matt Skiba filling in for DeLonge.
The 2023 reunion tour with DeLonge back in the fold was slated to open March 11 at the GNP Festival in Tijuana. It was postponed — along with blink’s entire South American tour — after Barker suffered a hand injury that required surgery.
What remains to be seen is how much crossover appeal blink has for fans of Ocean’s contemporary R&B music, which generally attracts a younger audience than blink’s.
The news that blink is replacing Ocean follows the Wednesday announcement that Ocean was withdrawing from this Sunday’s bill in Indio, citing leg injuries he sustained while preparing for his decidedly uneven Coachella opening weekend performance last Sunday.
A statement released Wednesday on his behalf read: “Frank Ocean was unable to perform the intended show but was still intent on performing, and in 72 hours, the show was reworked out of necessity. On doctor’s advice, Frank Ocean is not able to perform (at Coachella’s) weekend 2 due to two fractures and a sprain in his left leg.”
Considering how erratic his Coachella performance was — and the disappointment and anger many attendees expressed on social media — it is unclear if Ocean’s withdrawing from the festival’s second weekend may also be a face-saving measure.
Either way, finding a marquee replacement on such short notice to headline the world’s biggest and most profitable annual music festival is no easy matter. Potential candidates have to meet multiple criteria.
They must be available and ready to go, yet not have performed recently in Southern California.
They must be popular enough to merit closing the festival on its Main Stage, which is the largest performance area at Coachella.
And they must resonate with the predominantly young audience that regards this year’s headliners — Bad Bunny, Blackpink and the now-withdrawn Ocean — as qualitative equals.
Does blink fit the bill?
We’ll soon find out.
