Forget the debate surrounding Blink-182's punk credibility. They blow past Green Day on their way to the sugar-sweet end of the punk-pop spectrum. All that matters is whether they're any good and whether they rock.

        The trio's show at Riverbend Monday night brings to mind the following adjectives: peppy, naughty and corny.

        Peppy because they favor tempos faster than those of the average boy band, but the melodies are just as confectionary. Naughty because Blink opened the curtains to reveal giant flaming letters that spelled out a four-letter word. It seemed more like a marketing ploy than anything to make people ill at ease, the way for instance punk bands like the Sex Pistols did.

        And then there's corny. Singing the WKRP in Cincinnati theme in this town has been done before, fellas — luckily, your teen-age fans probably hadn't heard it).

        Was Blink good? The teen-age audience thought so. They stood for the entire 75-minute set, heavy on Blink's breakthrough album Enema of the State and their latest, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. They sang the words to the proper songs and laughed heartily at bassist Mark Hoppus' and guitarist Tom DeLonge's little improvised dirty ditties and their back-and-forth insults.

        Rocking? At times, thanks to the guy that constantly powered them forward and toyed with otherwise monotonous punk rhythms, drummer Travis Barker. More importantly, it was he who stepped in to count off the next song when the between-song jokes were falling flat.

        They had their better moments, mainly the catchy Enema hits. And in the lyrics of these songs — be it the angst of “Adam's Song” or the immaturity celebration of “What's My Age Again” — it's plain to hear what the kids like.

        But nobody should kid themselves. Blink is the band boy-band fans go to when they graduate. It's catchy pop just the same, only with guitars and dirty words.

        Give them credit for their taste in other people's music. They hand-picked openers the Alkaline Trio, a Chicago punk band that worked a bunch of hard-edged tunes (and no jokes) into its half-hour set. They were sporting a replacement drummer, Pete Parada from the band Face to Face, and he played flawlessly.

        New Found Glory, second on the bill, was closer in nature to the comical spirit of the headliner. They did funny covers of soundtrack tunes from The Neverending Story and Karate Kid II, for those who find that sort of thing funny.

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