Concert review: Blink-182 performs act of magic at Petco Park San Diego homecoming show

Happily, those new songs accounted for some of the highlights at Petco, most notably the thundering “More Than You Know” and the snappy, lust-fueled “Dance With Me,” which boasts the gloriously silly refrain: “Ole, ole, ole, ole!”

Very few veteran bands these days dare to include so many songs from their newest album, let alone a pop-punk band bringing its pyrotechnics-punctuated stadium show to a finish with a contemplative ballad about the frailty of life.

Playing with a renewed sense of purpose, Blink took to the enormous circular stage after spirited opening sets by England’s Hot Milk and San Diego’s Pierce The Veil, whose enthusiastically received eight-song set culminated with rousing renditions of “Pass the Nirvana” and “King for a Day.”

“We’re Blink-182 from Poway!” DeLonge declared to cheers. It was one of multiple hometown references, including a shout-out to Rocket from the Crypt as “the greatest band ever to walk the face of the earth.”

“We used to play at a club not far from here,” Hoppus said, in between “Aliens Exist” and “Dance With Me.” “Our biggest (expletive) goal was to sell SOMA out.”

It was at SOMA that Hoppus and DeLonge met Barker, then the drummer in the Orange County ska-punk band the Aquabats. He joined Blink in 1998, replacing the trio’s original drummer, Scott Traynor.

One of the most accomplished rock and hip-hop drummers of his generation, Barker combines expert precision and electrifying power in his playing. On Sunday, he alternated between two drum kits, one front and center on the stage, the other on on a metallic riser that hovered nearly 20 feet above the rear of the stage.

Other rock stars over the years have performed on drum kits suspended in the air, be it Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Carl Palmer in the 1970s, Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee in the 1990s or Muse’s Dominic Howard in more recent years. But none of them can elevate even the most elemental songs as well as Barker did throughout Blink’s Petco concert.

Whether playing pile-driving beats at insanely accelerated tempos or skittering syncopations that seemed to pay homage to the groundbreaking work of the late hip-hop production visionary J Dilla, Barker was a constant source of percussive skill, fire and imagination.

After “Dance With Me” concluded, Hoppus gleefully told the cheering, multigenerational crowd: “You can’t join a band and do what we do! It’s unique to us.”

On cue, DeLonge responded with a quip about oral sex, a topic that — like flatulence and incest — has long been a staple of Blink’s stage patter.

Later, when DeLonge claimed to have lost his virginity to “the sister of a friend,” Hoppus volunteered that it was his sister, Anne, and — with a grin — described the situation as “awkward.”

If DeLonge, 48, and Hoppus, 52, appear too old to engage in such lowbrow high jinks, well, maturity has never been Blink’s goal. Except, that is, with the show-closing “One More Time,” a song whose tender sentiments suggest that poignant insights and fart jokes can coexist at a rock show, even by a band whose potty-mouthed teenage sensibilities remain perpetually front and center.