Blink-182’s Tom Delonge hung out with excited fans and signed autographs at the House of Blues Saturday as tickets for the band’s highly anticipated amphitheatre show went on sale.
“I look like I’m important, but it’s really not true,” Delonge said. “I came out to sign tickets because I was feeling, like, really low self esteem and I was like ‘maybe I can go down and have people like me for a little bit,’ but you know what, they’re all just getting paid for it, it’s not true.”
All joking aside, the fans were ecstatic to meet the rock star and very happy the band is reuniting.
“I want to say thank you for getting back together again and I hope you can inspire more kids like you inspired mine,” one mother said.
Another (more animated) pair of fans couldn’t control their excitement. One of them told Delonge she had spent $940 dollars on tickets.
“Why did you do that?” Delonge said. “You didn’t get them from scalpers did you?”
“No, I bought eight tickets for Vegas, four tickets for Irvine and now these two,” she said.
The girl’s friend was also a big fan, which was evident from the tattoo on the inside of her lip.
“I got a Blink 182 tattoo when there was like no sign of them getting back together, so I think it’s good luck,” she said. “What does it say?” someone asked her. “Ripe,” she replied. “It’s a lyric, it’s ‘I’m ripe with things to say’.” And she certainly was.
“We’ve been Blink fans for forever. If you asked us a year ago and asked us what band in the whole history of bands we could see perform live together again, reunited, we would totally say Blink!”
The band will play 50 shows this summer, starting on July 24 in Vegas. Best of all for local fans is a show lined up Sept. 16 at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater in Chula Vista. Other relatively nearby concerts include dates in Irvine, Phoenix and Santa Barbara.
Blink-182 split up in 2005. The spark for the reunion appears to be Travis Barker's survival of a deadly plane crash last September.
