CALIFORNIA ROCK NEWS

Alex Kluft

One of Punk’s greatest bands to emerge in the mid-90’s Alkaline Trio from Chicago, IL is finally back with their first album in six years Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs. Between 2015 and 2022 guitarist/vocalist Matt Skiba took over for Tom DeLonge in Blink-182 and in that time released two albums and did four tours (2016-2019). Alkaline Trio released Is This Thing Cursed? In 2018 and also had two tours while Skiba was a member of Blink-182. The Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs tour started February 22nd at the House of Blues Anaheim and made its way to the Novo in Downtown Los Angeles March 29th. Alkaline Trio formed in 1996 by Skiba and in 1997 bassist Dan Andriano joined and both have been on all 10 of the band’s releases. Atom Willard (Angels & Airwaves/ Offspring) played his first Alkaline Trio show in June 2023 at Wrigley Field in the band’s hometown along fellow Chicago band Fallout Boy. Willard replaced the group’s longest drummer Derek Grant, a member from 2001-2023 who also played on the new album. 

Alkaline Trio played a set of 20 songs opening with “Hot for Preacher.” and included Pop-Punk anthems like “Stupid Kid,” “Private Eye,”  and a one song encore of “Radio.” It was easy to see how highly anticipated this show was. The U.S. part of the tour ended the following night at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas, NV. The tour will resume July 16th in the UK and continue through August 12th in Italy. 

Setlist:

1. Hot for Preacher
2. We’ve Had Enough
3. Take Lots With Alcohol 
4. Bad Time
5. Versions of You
6. Mr. Chainsaw
7. One Hundred Stories
8. Calling All Skeletons
9. Cringe
10. Break
11. Armageddon
12. F*ck You Aurora
13. Mercy Me
14. Warbrain
15. Crawl
16. Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs
17. Stupid Kid
18. Private Eyes
19. Time To Waste

Encore

1. Radio