Blink-182 brings out Matt Skiba, Stephen Egerton in headlining set anchored in the past: Riot Fest review

Blink-182 was one big tease Friday night. And more than normal, which didn’t ever seem possible.

In addition to the typical chain-yanking, eighth-grade sex ed humor between Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge, they kept referring to some other hush-hush inside bit between the two of them.

“Remember at rehearsal today, Mark …” DeLonge goaded while Hoppus shut him down quickly to avoid giving the secret away.

When special guest Matt Skiba showed up to take guitar and vocal reins on “Bored to Death,” recalling those seven years he filled in during the wake of DeLonge’s messy departure when he left to pursue other things, many assumed that was the surprise we’d all been waiting for, and what a good one it was.

“The last couple of years have been f----ing amazing for Blink-182,” said DeLonge to intro his counterpart, who took the stage earlier Friday with his band, Chicago's own Alkaline Trio.

DeLonge added, “When I was doing my thing and couldn’t play with my brothers in the band, Matt Skiba stepped in and he kept this band alive. He’s a great person and a great friend.”

While there was always hope of no lingering friction after the infamous swap-o-rama, this olive branch was especially important in front of Skiba’s hometown crowd. It followed recent news of Travis Barker producing new Alkaline Trio songs, including one, “Bleeding Out,” just released Friday.

Still, Blink had something else planned, something that Hoppus referred to a total “bucket list” for the band: Playing their longtime cover of Descendents’ “Hope” with the punk legends’ guitarist Stephen Egerton himself.

“We rehearsed this one time in Travis’ dressing room before the show and I got emotional,” admitted DeLonge. “These are the punk bands we grew up on.” For a few minutes, it was a melding of the punk generations that was easily won over by the similar multigenerational punk fans in the crowd.

“Let’s walk off now, there’s nothing better,” Hoppus joked. He wasn’t totally wrong.

Blink-182 is one of those bands that has to ask, “what’s my age again?” because everyone (themselves included) gets frozen in middle school when they perform — whether it’s the nostalgia of hearing “All the Small Things” for the millionth time or the schoolyard chuckles about genitalia and mom jokes. But having heard this all — again for the millionth time — it just grows stale after a while. Chicago saw a very similar show in 2024 when Blink headlined Lollapalooza, down to the part where DeLonge started uttering a bunch of expletives in a bid to get the ASL interpreter to sign them.

What was missing were the biggest hits from their latest album, with no performances of “Edging” or “One More Time” anywhere in the set. It was an odd stylistic choice, but maybe the point of their set was to go back.

In 20 years of Riot Fest, Blink-182 has now played the event three times, and a massive crowd showed up to see them close out Friday night, looking for those anchors to the past.

In the end, Blink did ride out their Riot set on a literal blaze of glory. As they played their final song “Dammit,” mixing in TLC’s “No Scrubs,” a giant middle finger emblem was set ablaze behind them, flipping off everyone in Douglass Park. That arguably got the biggest laugh of the day, the perfect punchline after the humorous lineup of Weird Al and Mac Sabbath.

Blink-182 Set List Sept. 19 at Riot Fest in Douglass Park

The Rock Show
First Date
Josie
Anthem Part Two
Online Songs
M+M's
F**k Face
Dumpweed
Feeling This
Down
Turpentine
Bored To Death (with Matt Skiba)
Wishing Well
Stay Together For The Kids
Roller Coaster
Dance With Me
I Miss You
More Than You Know
Hope (Descendents cover) (with Stephen Egerton)
What's My Age Again?
All The Small Things
Dammit