Cameron Wood’s whirlwind tour of Canada and the United States took in plenty of truly unique experiences, none greater than a concert featuring his all-time favourite Californian rock band, Blink-182.
 
In this, the final in his postcard series, the Carlton ruckman talks of living the dream on the day Blink-182 hit the bright light city of Las Vegas.
 

Ask me to declare the highlight of the trip . . . it would involve a band called Blink-182. They were pretty big when I was at high school and they were playing a show in Vegas I built my trip around.

On the day of the show Travis Barker, the band’s drummer, was going to do a “meet and greet” outside a shopping mall in the area. I had been made aware of this a couple of weeks before when it came up on various social media platforms.

But there were terms and conditions. Only 300 people could get to see him, to do so you had to be given a wristband and the wristbands were to be given out at 10 o’clock in the morning - some three hours before Trav’s meet and greet.

The Blink-182 concert in Las Vegas. (Photo: Supplied)

I arrived in Las Vegas a few days before the meet and greet and rang the guy at the shop where Barker was going to be. I asked him what the details were and he told me they were expecting a lot of people. He said that the mall was to open up at seven, but he expected plenty to line-up before then.

Naturally I got up pretty early and got to the mall at quarter past five. I  was seventh in line, it was pitch black and I was standing with some pretty interesting people.

I got my wristband at 10 o’clock and got to see Trav at 1 – about eight hours after I first got there. I got a photo with him, his signature and I had a chat with him for about 30 seconds. He asked me where I was from and if I was coming to the show that night. I replied ‘Yeah, it’s the whole reason I’m here!’

I saw Blink-182 play that night. They didn’t walk on until 10 o’clock, so it’d been a pretty long day for me, but who cares? That was the highlight.