My Mind Is Absolutely Blown By This Resurfaced Video Of Travis' First Show With Blink 182 Which Was At HFStival 1998

Kerrang - As you can see from this video, it was a simpler time. blink-182 were still a pretty huge band, but hadn’t yet vaulted to the levels of rock stardom they now occupy, meaning you could catch them playing Josie in Baltimore at a radio station’s summer jam show. Barker looks less tattooed, and super eager behind the kit. But more than anything, this footage is heavy with the vibes of early ’90s pop-punk, from the toilet paper that’s thrown everywhere to the punks with spiky hair skanking onstage before leaping into the crowd. Ah, what a time to be a teenager with a wallet chain!

I don’t know how to properly explain how blown my mind is right now. Someone dug up their old camcorder footage of a blink 182 show from 1998. This is pre-Enema of the State we’re talking here. But not just that, it also happens to be Travis’s first show with blink. BUT NOT JUST THAT. It also appears to be at the legendary, and I mean legendary, HFStival. The HFStival was the first of it’s kind radio station summer concert. But like…100 times more important than what you see nowadays when it’s all just Imagine Dragons and shit like that headlining.

The concert was put on by the radio station 99.1 WHFS which was a Baltimore/DC rock station, one of the last of it’s kind, that played the music the DJs, and the fans of rock music, wanted to hear. It also was one of those stations where if your band got on it, you “made it” so to speak. Before everything became corporate crap and the same 5 songs every hour, HFS existed. Getting on the bill at HFStival mattered. A lot of bands would start on the street stage (on in Good Charlotte’s case, the Local’s Only Stage) and grind their way up. For example, look at this 1999 main stage. I think that’s when music peaked? (minus Moby but to be fair he was huuuuge at the time)

Also wait hold on check out 2004. Look at that street stage. How do you book a better street stage than that? Unreal.

I actually wrote a decently long blog about HFS/HFStival back in 2015. HFS is why I got into music. And they had Loveline with Dr Drew and Adam Carolla at night which taught me more about life than pretty much anything. (I also wrote a decently long blog about Loveline in 2016. I’ve blogged about everything.)

But now, look how awesome this video is. All the fans getting on stage and stage diving, the ridiculous(ly awesome) fashion, Mark and Tom’s banter, Travis looking nothing like Travis of today, and the incredible set list. No cell phones anywhere. That’s probably what I miss most about concerts from back in the day, nobody on their phone. You just felt like the show mattered so much more. I’m gonna start weeping.

Enjoy the show. Viva la HFStival. Oh PS: I can’t write a blog about HFStival without mentioning Jimmie’s Chicken Shack. I just can’t.