The Rock Show

Prior to recording the group's fourth studio album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, Blink-182 recorded demos at DML Studios, a small practice studio in Escondido, California, where the band had written Dude Ranch and Enema of the State.[1] The group had written a dozen songs after three weeks and invited the band's manager, Rick DeVoe, to be the first person outside Blink-182 to hear the new material, which the band found "catchy [but with] a definitive edge".[1][3][4] DeVoe sat in the control room and quietly listened to the recordings, and pressed the band at the end on why there was no "Blink-182 good-time summer anthem [thing]". DeLonge and Hoppus were furious, remarking, "You want a fucking single? I'll write you the cheesiest, catchiest, throwaway fucking summertime single you've ever heard!"[1][5] Hoppus went home and wrote "The Rock Show" in ten minutes, and DeLonge similarly wrote "First Date", which became the most successful singles from the record and future live staples.[4]

Hoppus wrote the song based on his memories of the San Diego club Soma. In their early days, Blink-182 performed dozens of concerts at the venue, mainly at the 5305 Metro Street location.[6] "It was covered with graffiti, it stunk, it was made of concrete and metal so the sound sucked and the toilets were always over-flowing. It was the best, we loved it," he recalled.[7] Barker remembered that the song's arrangement was worked in the Famous Stars and Straps warehouse in San Diego.[8] The band felt the song captured "the spirit of the Ramones and Screeching Weasel," and "[it was] definitely influenced by bands like the Descendents."[9] The band members expanded upon this in a 2001 interview with BBC Music:

I think it's actually as if we built a punk rock time capsule and went back to five years ago when we were writing songs. We wrote that song as a mid-tempo punk-pop song about a girl, and it ended up being one of the better ones on the record.[9]

Although it only peaked at number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 33 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, it reached number two on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.[10]

Eric Aiese of Billboard examined the song through the lens of its airplay competition: "As the face of rock radio has yielded toward the emerging hard sounds on "nu metal," Blink continues to provide a contrasting voice […] "The Rock Show" clearly shows the band's talent for writing—and performing—hooks."[11]

The band filmed a music video that included them trashing televisions, trains, taking the homeless for a spa makeover, handing out cash to strangers and paying dancers to mow people's lawns.[10] The relatively large budget for the video, reportedly $500,000, was the basis of the joke and frivolously spent.[10][12]

• During the hiatus, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker regularly played this song in their band, +44. Craig Fairbaugh, guitarist and background vocalist of +44, replaced DeLonge on backing vocals.
• "The Rock Show" appears in the video games Amplitude, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero Live, and Splashdown.
• The song is available as DLC for both Rock Band and its portable counterpart, Rock Band Unplugged.