Got to love the boys! We’re going back 19 years to Blink-182’s 2001 performance of ‘First Date’ on Late Night Conan O’Brien when the band turned up looking like they had been beaten up.
In a video posted on Twitter on the 19th anniversary of the show/performance, @Blink182italia (fan account) posted the following:
“On this day 19 years ago, Blink-182 was playing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien! Mark, Tom and Travis famously wore make-up to look all beaten up as a joke – but over the years a lot of people actually fell for it!”
Following that post, bassist and co-vocalist Mark Hoppus responded by saying:
“Our label believed it. They called our tour manager the next day like, ‘What the hell happened?”
In an interview with Kerrang in 2014, Hoppus “set the record straight” in a Q & A with fans. This is what the bassist and co-vocalist had to say:
“It was a prank! Right before we went onstage, they were like ‘Right, Blink, you’re onstage in 10 minutes – go get made up.’ So we go back there, and the make-up artists had this row of photos that she’d done, and some of them showed special effects. She put a black eye on me! The next morning, everyone was calling up like, ‘What happened to them? What the fuck actually happened to these guys?”
Almost 20 years later, hopefully people will get the idea that no-one actually beat the members of Blink-182 up – they were punking us! Simple as that. Watch the performance in full below:
