Concert Review: Honda Civic Tour

Gerard Way

The Honda Civic tour made a stop at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater for the first of two shows on Saturday night, which included rock bands My Chemical Romance and Blink-182. 

"I'm looking at a lot of f**king people tonight and I don't think rock is dead," singer Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance told fans.

He was most definitely right. My Chemical Romance's set actually made me forget for an hour that the Jones Beach Theater foolishly doesn't sell beer.

The band's set started with their hit "Na Na Na," and later included other hits, "Sing," "Helena" and "I'm Not Okay." Enormous beach balls were thrown into the crowd during the hype song "Planetary (GO!)" from the band's current album, Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys. Way is an extremely talented front man, dramatically kneeling on stage while elongating perfectly-pitched notes and encouraging fans to jump up and out of their seats during upbeat songs.

The stage lights abruptly turned on as the band walked offstage following their performance of "Sing," causing slight boos from the crowd, since it was revealed the band would not be doing an encore. And I don't blame them--I could tell My Chemical Romance had a lot more to give their fans.

As I waited for Blink-182 to come on stage I knew it would pan out in one of two ways: A) They would have evolved into a more mature, serious band or B) They would remain irrelevant in this decade with "your mom" jokes and constantly talking about how they want to get laid. If you chose "B," then you are correct.

Mark Hoppus

The band opened the show with their 2003 hit, "Feeling This," and played most of their biggest hits including "The Rock Show," "What's My Age Again?,"  "All The Small Things" and "Dammit." It would have been somewhat enjoyable if singer/bassist Mark Hoppus and singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge didn't continue their constant banter at each other and meaningless shtick as if it was the year 2000 all over again. At one point Hoppus shouted out "Happy Birthday" to his wife, and later let the crowd know that he will most likely "get lucky" tonight because of it. Considering Hoppus, 39, is now just about as old as most of his fans' fathers, these jokes come off as quite creepy.

 The worst part is that during Blink-182's five-year hiatus, Tom DeLonge apparently never thought to use that time to get singing lessons. At one point, DeLonge noticeably could not hit one note and actually stopped singing in the middle of the song to let the crowd know "this is as low as I can go." This was a performance that would make any sober adult such as myself want to rip their ears off.

Clearly, My Chemical Romance wins by a landslide for the better performance of the night. Maybe the Honda Civic Tour will put more thought into which band should headline next year.