Blink and you might miss it, at least if you were planning to take the weekend off from watching concerts. The first reunion gig by the classic lineup of Blink-182 will not be waiting till the officially set beginning of the band’s tour in May, as previously expected. Instead, the reconstituted group’s first gig together since 2014 will be happening this Friday at the Coachella Festival.
The late-breaking development was revealed not with any great flourishes or hoopla, but with the group’s name simply showing up on the festival schedule when it was released late Wednesday night, tucked in modestly among set times for hundreds of long-since-announced artists.
The band is set to appear in the Sahara tent at the festival Friday from 6:45-7:35 p.m., in-between some artists who are not nearly on the household-name level that Blink-182 is, well prior to Metro Boomin closing out the night on that stage starting at 10:35 p.m. (See all the newly revealed set times, below.)
Blink-182 was not the only surprise to pop up when set times were released. The previously unannounced James Blake suddenly showed up in the lineup, slotted in on Friday at 8:30 p.m. on the Do Lab stage.
Was the unveiling of Blink-182’s appearance meant to be that humble? Presumably, the festival and/or the band thought it would be more fun to let fans discover it on their own, late at night, rather than be splashy about it. As of 1 a.m. PT Thursday morning — the start of the day before the festival — there was still nary a mention of any such imminent appearance on the band’s website or social media pages.
L.A. radio station KROQ apparently had a heads-up on the announcement, and attentive listeners were able to guess what might be up, as the station teased a big surprise act earlier on Wednesday evening — with the Blink song “All of This” playing in the background counting as a none-too-subtle hint.
As far as the general public knew prior to late Thursday, the Blink-182 tour was scheduled to begin May 4 in St. Paul — a two-month delay from the originally planned date.
The band announced in Sept. 2022 that founding member Tom DeLonge was rejoining Mark Hoppus and Travis Baker to reform the original trio after eight years of separation. The tour was first scheduled to begin March 11 in Tijuana, Mexico, but fate intervened in the form of Barker injuring his finger in rehearsals on two separate occasions in February, causing the band to first reveal surgery was necessary and to finally announce on March 3 that a two-month delay would take place.
DeLonge last played a public gig with the others at a show in Las Vegas on Oct. 11, 2014. He announced his exit a few months later, in January 2015.
Although no formal announcement of the band joining the Coachella lineup has been made, it would be customary for the band, having gotten on board for this weekend, to repeat its performance on the second Friday of the festival, April 21, in the same Sahara tent slot. Blink fans who don’t have passes for the desert gathering won’t be out of luck; both weekends are being live-streamed this year.
The set times for all three days of Coachella:
James Blake accidentally leaked as surprise Do Lab guest at same time as the Gorillaz
