On July 15th, 2001, I got to see blink-182 in St. Louis, Missouri at the Riverport Amphitheatre! Their opening acts were Alkaline Trio and New Found Glory! I went with my girlfriend who is just as big of a fan of blink-182 as I am.

Our experience began when we were sitting outside the amphitheatre in my car, with the windows down, waiting for the gates to open and let us in to the parking area. To our amazement, we heard the guitar strum that matched the tabs of "First Date". We were thinking, "ah, just the tuning guys they've hired or something." Then, we hear Tom belt out the lyrics to "First Date" during their warm-up! I couldn't believe my ears!!! We were freakin' out! We could also hear Mark singing back-up and tuning his guitar, and Travis playing drums of course!! It was a great way to start things off!

If that wasn't enough excitement, when we got inside and were standing against the entrance gates waiting for them to open up so we could go to our seats, we saw a golf cart come flying around the corner on the other side of the gate and come driving up about 5 feet away from where we were standing, literally leaving no space between them and the fence. The driver was Tom Delonge and filiming us with a camera was cheetah (we think anyways). Some fan yelled from behind us, "Tom, you fuckin' rule!" Tom rose his hand, sticking out his thumb, index and pinky fingers and replied "Fuck yeah!" real loud. It was awesome!

Finally, inside the amphitheatre, Alkaline Trio took stage about 7:00pm or so and rocked out! They are a great band with much potential! They didn't have any special effects, performed when it was still light outside, and basically stood in the same spots the whole time, and they still impressed the hell out of me! Rock on, A.T.!

Next, New Found Glory, one of my favorite bands, rocked the house as expected with songs like "Better Off Dead", "Boy Crazy", and "Hit or Miss"!! They did a excellent job and I want to see them again REAL soon!! Their limited light show was great and they interacted with the crowd REAL well! Their live show made me appreciate their albums even more!

At around 9:45pm, the "2001: Space Odyssey" introduction song came on and the lights went out! Everyone went berserk after that!! Then, this big curtain dropped and the now infamous flaming FUCK was revealed with the boys standing(and sitting) there waiting to rock out! They began with "Rock Show", which was great! They played "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" three times in a row, and once more later in the show, accompanying the song with red and green lights! It was awesome! Chad from NFG came out and played during a song, I can't remember which one however. Mark took it upon himself to give St. Louis the slogan... "St. Louis, where a hand job says "hello" And Travis' AWESOME drum solo during "Story of a Lonely Guy" was magnificent! Wonderful, wonderful show! I will definitely be going to see them on tour with two of my all-time favorite bands, Green Day and Jimmy Eat World! That is my DREAM TOUR!