"The Rock Show" is the first single from Blink-182's 2001 album Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. It was released in June 2001. The song was the most successful song on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, #71 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #14 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was written by Mark Hoppus after the producer for TOYPAJ told them they needed some "feel-good" songs on their record. Mark went home that night and just wrote "The Rock Show", and Tom wrote "First Date" that same night.
Meaning []
"A few years ago there used to be a club in San Diego called 'SOMA.' It was covered with Graffitti, it stunk, it was made of metal, the sound sucked, and the toilets were always overflowing. It was the best, we loved it. We used to watch bands play there every weekend. Blink-182 began in this club. This song is about those days. SOMA isn't around anymore. The city hates it when kids have somewhere to go and hang out."
In popular culture[]
- "The Rock Show" is featured on the US edition of the compilation album Now That's What I Call Music! 8 (2001) and the compilation albums Warped 15th Anniversary Celebration (2010) and Warped Tour 2010 Tour Compilation (2010).
- Blink-182 members Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker covered this song in their band, +44. Craig Fairbaugh, guitarist and background vocalist of +44, sang Tom's backing lines in the chorus.
- The song is a playable song in the music video game Amplitude.
- It is an available track included in Guitar Hero 5.
- The song is also currently available as DLC for both Rock Band (released on July 28, 2009) and its portable counterpart, Rock Band Unplugged (released October 22, 2009).
Music video[]
The video, directed by The Malloys and released in 2001, involves the band taking a cheque from their production company for $500,000 and making the video themselves. Driving around Los Angeles in their van, the video features the following:
- distributing money to people around the town (some street workers, placing under window wipers, throwing it off the roof of an adult book store)
- giving a homeless man a hair cut and new suit and taking him to a strip club
- paying for people to shave their heads in Mullan & Bailey Hair Salon
- purchasing some doves and releasing them
- paying for a group of strippers to mow a man's lawn, and clean a car
- purchasing some cars and destroying them (specifically dropping a car from a crane)
- buying a TV just to destroy it with a baseball bat
- paying for a plane to carry a banner with the text: "Take off your pants and jacket"
- giving away skateboarding gear to young skaters, some of which then try to jump over the band's van. Professional skateboarder Jeremy Klein makes a cameo appearance.
- some antics were excluded from the final cut for being too explicit, such as paying a guy to be tatooed (which was illegal to film then in America)[1] and driving cars off cliffs[2]
Also, as a reference to another rock band, Foo Fighters, Tom spits in to the camera lens like Dave Grohl in the "Monkey Wrench" music video, but at the end, Mark violently forces him to wipe it off using a US$100 bill.