Blink-182 and Lil Wayne play together with Neck Deep at Hersheypark Stadium on July 5
From a press release:
Multi-platinum, award-winning artists Blink-182 and Lil Wayne have announced they’ll be hitting the road together for the first time ever on a co-headlining tour across North America this summer. Welsh pop punk band Neck Deep will join them on all dates as special guests.
Produced by Live Nation, the massive 38-city outing will kick off on June 27 in Columbus, Ohio and make stops in Toronto, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, and more before wrapping Sept. 16 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The tour includes shows indoors and outdoors in arenas and amphitheaters across the U.S. and Canada all summer long, including a concert at Hersheypark Stadium on Friday, July 5 at 7:30 p.m.
To celebrate the upcoming tour, blink-182 and Lil Wayne recently got together to record a special tour announcement video featuring a mashup of their hits “What’s My Age Again?” and “A Milli:”
Tickets for the Hershey concert, which start at $37.60 (processing fees apply), go on sale this Friday, May 10 at noon and will be available at the Giant Center box office (550 Hersheypark Dr., Hershey), online at hersheyentertainment.com and ticketmaster.com, and by phone at 717-534-3911 or 800-745-3000.
Citi is the official pre-sale credit card for the tour. As such, Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning Tuesday, May 7 at 10 a.m. until Thursday, May 9 at 10 p.m. through Citi’s Private Pass program.
Fans can expect a tour like no other from the two artists who have both defined and defied their respective genres over the past two decades. They have both seen incredible success in their long-lasting careers with an astonishing number of awards, multi-platinum albums and singles, and No. 1 songs stacked between the two of them – a testament to each’s longstanding and loyal fan bases.
Rapper, singer, record executive, and actor Lil Wayne started his career in 1993 at the age of 11 when he was discovered by Bryan “Birdman” Williams and joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo The B.G.’z, alongside fellow New Orleans-based rapper B.G. In 1996, Lil Wayne and B.G. joined the southern hip hop group Hot Boys with Cash Money labelmates Juvenile and Turk. Hot Boys debuted with “Get It How U Live!” that same year. Most of the group’s success came with their platinum-selling 1999 album “Guerrilla Warfare” and the 1999 single “Bling Bling.”. For many years, he was the flagship artist of Cash Money Records before ending his long-tenured deal with the company in 2018.
Lil Wayne’s solo debut album “Tha Block Is Hot” (1999) was certified platinum by the RIAA, while his subsequent albums, “Lights Out” (2000) and “500 Degreez” (2002), went on to be certified gold. He reached higher popularity with his fourth album, “Tha Carter” (2004), which was led by the single “Go D.J.” and his appearance on Destiny’s Child’s Top 10 single “Soldier” that same year. The album was followed by “Tha Carter II” (2005), as well as several mixtapes and collaborations throughout 2006 and 2007.
Wayne gained more prominence with his sixth album, “Tha Carter III” (2008), which became his most successful album to date with first-week sales of over one million copies in the United States. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and includes the singles “Lollipop,” “A Milli,” and “Got Money.”
Following the success of “Tha Carter III,” Wayne decided to record a rock-esque album titled “Rebirth.” The 2010 album was certified gold by the RIAA despite a generally negative critical response. His eighth album, “I Am Not a Human Being” (2010), was released during his incarceration for criminal possession of a weapon. His 2011 album and first following his release, “Tha Carter IV,” sold 964,000 copies in its first week of availability in the United States. It includes the singles “6 Foot 7 Foot,” “How to Love,” and “She Will”. On Sept. 27, 2012, Lil Wayne passed Elvis Presley as the male with the most entries on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with 109 songs, though the record has since been passed by other artists.
His long-awaited 12th studio album, “Tha Carter V,” was released in 2018 after multiple delays. It sold 480,000 copies in its first week and went on to be certified platinum. Lil Wayne has sold over 100 million records worldwide, including more than 15 million albums and 37 million digital tracks in the U.S., making him one of the bestselling artists of all time. He also currently serves as the CEO of his own label imprint, Young Money Entertainment.
Since their humble beginnings over 25 years ago when they started playing in a San Diego garage, pop punk band Blink-182 has sold over 50 million albums worldwide and rocked audiences from Adelaide to Zurich, having become one of the defining rock bands of their generation. They combine high-energy dynamics with an artistic ambition that transcends any genre.
Now with Matt Skiba as singer and guitarist, the group has entered a new chapter. Skiba debuted with Blink-182 in March 2015 with a live performance at the MusInk Tattoo and Music Festival. “It was the best they’ve sounded in over a decade,” the OC Weekly raved about the band’s set.
Early in 2016, Skiba finally entered the studio with bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker. Although the band had written over 30 songs in the months before the sessions, once they started working with producer John Feldmann, they soon discarded all the old material.
“We hit the ground running so hard that we just kept writing and writing,” Hoppus says, “and suddenly we realized that we had written more than 20 new songs, and they were all really great.”
Blink-182 already racked up more than their fair share of platinum records and blockbuster singles, and their seventh studio album, “California,” continued that legacy when it debuted at No. 1 in the United States and, for the first time ever, in the United Kingdom. It was the group’s first domestic chart-topper in 15 years with hit singles “Bored to Death” and “She’s Out of Her Mind.”
“This is the next step for us – it’s not a stopgap and we’re not punching a clock,” Hoppus emphasizes. “We’re not just a greatest hits band, although we will play the hits. Blink is alive and well, and we’re excited about doing cool new stuff. It feels just like the old days, spending 14 or 16 hours in the studio until 2 o’clock in the morning, blasting the latest rough mix of a song as you drive home excited and exhausted, waking up and the band is the first thing you think of in the morning and then working all day on it. Every day in the studio has been a lot of fun.”
According to the New York Times, “No punk band of the 1990s has been more influential than Blink-182.”
The members of the band still have other projects: Hoppus produces, scores films, and also has “Hi My Name is Mark,” both a podcast and curated lifestyle clothing line/website. Barker is a member of the Transplants, proprietor of the Famous Stars and Straps clothing company, and the author of the bestselling autobiography “Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums Drums Drums.” Skiba remains the lead singer of Alkaline Trio, but when the three members of Blink-182 come together, they leave aside their other interests and collaborate fully.
“I’ve never joined a band before; I’ve started every band I’ve ever been in,” Skiba says. “It’s a crazy dream-come-true feeling, but it feels organic. I spend a lot of time pinching myself.”
“We had a great chemistry with Matt right away,” Barker adds. “We’ve been friends with Matt for the past 17 years, so it was a real natural fit for him to come on board.”
Blink-182 are boldly facing the future, and Hoppus sums up their partnership: “I love our band – I’ve loved every single step along the way. I’m glad that we’ve continued to write music that we love and that connects to people 20 years later, and that we still feel like we did when we were playing garages back in San Diego in 1994.”
See NEPA Scene’s review and photos of Blink-182 playing with A Day to Remember and All Time Low at The Pavilion at Montage Mountain in Scranton back in 2016 here.
