The Offspring and Jimmy Eat World show was an oldhead's paradise

Confession time: Hi, my name is Jen, and I like mainstream radio hits that remind me of my adolescence.

And based on Wednesday night's Offspring concert at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, I'm not alone.

Dexter, Noodles and the rest of the band, along with supporting acts New Found Glory and hometown heroes Jimmy Eat World, are out on the Supercharged Worldwide Tour, and the Phoenix show was filled to the brim with musical nostalgia, unpretentious entertainment, good-natured pandering to the audience and a whole lot of cussing.

It was a delight.

I regret to say I only heard New Found Glory from the parking lot while waiting to get in — the pop-punk outfit took the stage at (gasp) the concert's posted start time.
But I was seated and ready when Jimmy Eat World came on. Whether you're a longtime Valley resident who watched the Mesa band rise from local venues to international stages, or just a fan who's been listening to them for decades, there's a warm feeling of pride you get when you watch Jimmy Eat World: Look at them. They really made it.

The 12-song set was a little short for my personal taste, but hey, they weren't the headliner. The four-piece (along with frequent contributor Robin Vining) made the most of their short time with now-classics like "Bleed American," "Sweetness" and "The Middle" along with newer tunes such as "Something Loud."

Frontman Jim Adkins was gloriously enthusiastic and charmingly awkward, bobbing his head and bopping around the stage. He looked like he was having just as much fun as the rest of us, and like the rest of us, he leaned hard into the nostalgia, reminiscing about watching concerts from the lawn as a teen and standing at the rail for Green Day during Lollapalooza 1994.
The audience had 25 minutes to grab a drink or a bathroom break between Jimmy Eat World and The Offspring, but if you didn't want to get up from your seat, the event had you covered. Graphics and tour staff entertained the crowd with a wide range of activities you'd be more likely to find at a baseball game, including a "Take on Me" singalong, a T-shirt gun and that thing where there's a ball under one of three cups and you have to keep track of where the ball ends up.

There was even a Kiss Cam (complete with Coldplay/Astronomer gag footage), but this being a rock concert, there was also a Fuck You Cam and a Booty Cam.

Then, it was time for The Offspring.

At the 2023 Innings Fest in Tempe, The Offspring told the crowd that they were going to play a new song. Next to me, a guy said to his friend, "They have new songs?"

Although the band hasn't produced a big hit for many years, it's also true that maybe they don't need to.

They kicked off their set promptly at 9 p.m. with "Come Out and Play," a song that turned 30 last year, but as it turns out, 30-year-old songs played by 60-year-old dudes can still rock pretty hard.
Frontman Dexter Holland and guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman set the musical and conversational tone for the evening; both guys look and sound great. They also kept the banter going till the end of the 20-song set, estimating that there were approximately 1.3 million people in the venue and calling the crowd the best concert audience in the history of all known universes. Do they say that every night? Probably. Was it still charming? Yup.

The setlist didn't have a ton of surprises; fans got what they came for, including bangers like "All I Want," "Bad Habit," "Pretty Fly for a White Guy," "Why Don't You Get a Job?" and closing number "Self-Esteem."

But the surprises were pretty cool. Holland asked fans to turn on their phone flashlights, then gave a heartfelt rendition of grief ballad "Gone Away" on the piano. Drummer Brandon Pertzborn, who was still six months away from being born when the Offspring's 1994 album "Smash" came out, performed a sick drum solo while the rest of the band took a short breather.

The best surprises, though, came in the form of a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. (Well, surprises unless you check the setlist before you go, like I do.) The band did "Paranoid" and "Crazy Train" mid-show, and while Holland's vocals were solid on the covers, the standout element was Wasserman and Jonah Nimoy's badass guitar work on "Crazy Train." It even got a quiet "hell, yeah!" out of me.

I go to a lot of concerts, and I see a lot of people at those concerts. The crowd at last night's Supercharged Worldwide wasn't trying to look cool. They weren't more concerned about shooting content than watching the show. They wanted to have fun and hear songs they've loved for years. They were people who like mainstream radio hits that remind them of their adolescence, and I am them, and they are me. And we all had a blast.

Here are more photos from The Offspring, Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre: