"Tuned Into Pop Culture" guest contributor Nick Carrabine is a News-Herald staff writer.

For all intensive purposes, the Blink 182 concert on Sept. 30 was a nightmare.

For starters, the original date - Sept. 2 with openers Weezer, Taking Back Sunday and Chester French - was postponed only to be rescheduled for Sept. 30 with openers Fall Out Boy and The All American Rejects.

With a start time of 6:30 p.m., my friends and I took off for Blossom Music Center at 4:30 p.m....only to finally arrive at 8:30 p.m., just minutes before Blink 182 took the stage.

This actually worked out to our advantage as we found out on the way there, The All American Rejects were forced to cancel their appearance and Fall Out Boy was to be the only opening band.

And who wouldn’t rather be in four hours of traffic instead of listening to Fall Out Boy? Or worse, watching them.

So yeah, the traffic. Anyone want to do anything about that? From about 5:30 p.m. until 8:15 p.m., we moved about six miles and all we had to think about was how anyone got away with still charging $54 for a show that was now completely and substantially worse than originally advertised.

I mean really, this is like going to your favorite restaurant, ordering a steak and lobster and then the waiter brings you out meatloaf and doesn't adjust your bill.

Also, I’d like to talk to whoever is in charge of scheduling events at Blossom Music Center. Is this guy or girl not from Cleveland? Did they just move here from Florida? California?

Don’t they know what a late September night could feel like around here?

Let me answer that question for that employee. Frigid.

Anyway, the show must go on and thankfully, Blink did what they could to make people forget that they were standing inside of an igloo.

They ripped through their plethora of hits and spread their setlist between their three most popular albums. Tom Delonge introduced “Stay Together for the Kids,” by saying “this song is about three guys who hated each other for five years,” referring to the band’s break-up in 2004.

For a band that is on their first tour in five years, they weren’t lacking any chemistry and they sounded better than I expected.

Because of the cold, they limited the stage shenanigans that the three are known for to make the set go faster. They also played through what would have normally been their encore so the fans wouldn’t have to wait in the cold for five minutes to hear more music.

Blink was good, but not $54 good. I’d see them again with better openers, a cheaper price and a warmer venue.

Setlist:
Dumpweed
Feeling This
Rock Show
What’s My Age Again?
Obvious
I Miss You
Stay Together For the Kids
Down
Always
Stockholm Syndrome
First Date
Man Overboard
Don’t Leave Me
Not Now
All The Small Things
Reckless Abandon
Josie
Anthem Part Two
Carousel
Dammit
Every Rose Has It’s Thorn (Poison cover)