Although I rarely end up committing and actually attending them, I love finding out about good upcoming concerts near me. I’ll click “Going” on Facebook and text my friends about at least 15-20 shows a year, but I usually only go to about 1 or 2 at best. As I’m sure you can tell from the variety in my “Shuffle Songs Of The Day” blogs, I have a pretty diverse taste in music. I’ve never understood people that have really selective tastes in music and stick to 1 or 2 genres, but trying to understand people is an impossible task. Carrying on with tradition, I haven’t attended or bought tickets to any concerts yet this year, despite some pretty solid ones being out there for 2019. But then, yesterday happened. Out of the absolute blue, this mashup began circulating on the web, and to say it caught people by surprise is an understatement

Admittedly, I kinda thought the song sucked. But the mere fact that this random Blink 182/Lil Wayne collaboration happened was good enough for me to be appreciative of it. And then, these 2 very different musicians took it a step further when they announced that they would be going on tour together

I think the world stopped and said, “Wait, what?” from this announcement. I thought it was just some troll post or something, but then the official pages started sharing the same image as well as the tour dates. Social media was abuzz with a lot of excitement, but also with a lot of bitching. I saw countless comments saying things like “Why would Blink do this?”, and “Lil Wayne sucks” etc. There was a whole lot of stuff of that nature, and I couldn’t disagree more.

Whether you love or hate Blink 182, Neck Deep or Lil Wayne is irrelevant to the main point I want to make here. My point is that concerts like this random example ensemble that I’m writing about now is awesome, and I wish they would happen more often. If you put the right lineup together, no matter what genres those musicians happen to play, you’ll have no problem selling tickets. Unorthodox lineups have been happening at festivals for years now, so why not just regular shows? This is a great example of a show that is definitely going to sell out at multiple venues. Blink 182 and Lil Wayne could easily sell out a place on their own, and combining them is like fishing with dynamite, so why is this not a more common thing to do? I don’t know, but we’re missing out on some great shows as a result of it.

Back in 2013, the metal band Lamb of God and rapper Waka Flocka Flame played some shows together. Somehow, this wasn’t enough to convince people that this is a great idea. In 2015, Fall Out Boy and Wiz Khalifa co-headlined a tour together, and still, it wasn’t enough to shine some much needed light on the potential for stuff like this. Hopefully, this Blink/Lil Wayne/Neck Deep tour should sway public opinion enough that collaboration tours made up of musicians from different genres become the norm. With the internet and the ability to easily access so many different kinds of music, there’s no excuse to not listen to a little of everything, and hopefully future concerts start to reflect that.

Until then though, I’m content getting shitfaced and singing along to songs from Enema Of The State, Sorry 4 Tha Wait, and The Peace And The Panic at the same concert. So come July 10th, catch me doing exactly that, and hopefully I won’t get kicked out and arrested like my last appearance at the Xfinity Center (Summer Jam 2011, never forget). Plus, maybe this will be the thing that finally makes Tom Delonge rejoin Blink and stop hunting aliens. I say that because this presents him the perfect opportunity to do both. Don’t be surprised when Lil Wayne starts playing songs from I Am Not A Human Being and Tom shows up like “Aliens”

While we’re talking about strange mashups, try this one on for size. Maybe Bobby will find a way to beat those murder charges so he can go on tour with Hawthorne Heights