SUPERCHARGED! SKATE PUNK VETERANS THE OFFSPRING BRING THEIR BEST YET
LIVE REVIEW | THE OFFSPRING w/ Simple Plan | AO ARENA, MANCHESTER 16th November 2025 by Craig Harston
After nearly forty years, punk rock veterans The Offspring are certainly showing that they’ve no intention of slowing down. Embarking on a huge worldwide tour, named after their eleventh and most recent album, 2024’s ‘SUPERCHARGED’, The Offspring – consisting of singer and guitarist Dexter Holland, guitarist Noodles, bass player Todd Morse, drummer Brandon Pertzborn and rhythm guitarist and percussionist Jonah Nimoy – might just be playing the best shows of their storied career. Assembling a great roster of bands for the shows across the world – with New Found Glory and Jimmy Eat World on the US dates over the summer and fellow skate punks vets Bad Religion on the upcoming Canadian leg of the tour – The Offspring aren’t just playing shows, they’re creating an experience!
Joining The Offspring for their UK dates are Canadian pop punks Simple Plan. Simple Plan might seem an odd choice for a punk rock show as they definitely lean more on the ‘pop’ side of pop punk, but if you’ve ever seen the Montreal band live you’ll know they absolutely bring the energy! Playing to a fairly large crowd as the opening band, they more than rose to the task of warming the room up, performing a solid set of their most popular songs, including ‘I’d Do Anything’, ‘Shut Up’, ‘Addicted’ and ‘I’m Just A Kid’ while also making time for a couple of relative deep cuts in ‘Your Love Is A Lie’ and ‘Farewell’, plus talking up their recent documentary ‘The Kids In The Crowd’ ahead of new song ‘Nothing Changes’. Finishing with ‘Perfect’ (beginning with a solo Pierre Bouvier on an acoustic guitar before the rest of the band joined him) you’d be forgiven for thinking Simple Plan were the headliners!
Cue the ‘Intermission’, signalled by the song of the same name from The Offspring’s classic 1997 album ‘Ixnay On The Hombre’. Instead of letting the crowd stand around during the twenty five minute break, The Offspring filled the gap with games on the big screens, a gorilla interacting with the crowd (and upgrading a lucky group of gig-goer’s seats) a blimp drone flying over the crowd and a Kiss-Cam, Headbanging-Cam and a Booty-Cam before counting down to the main event’s arrival on stage.
And arrive they did, inviting the now packed-out room to ‘Come Out And Play’ with their opening song and quickly following up with a great version of their pop punk bop ‘Want You Bad’. The band then pointed out it had been four years since they had been in Manchester, thanked everyone for coming out to the SUPERCHARGED tour and launched into a thunderous version of the opening song from that album, ‘Looking Out For #1’. There was plenty of crowd participation throughout ‘Staring At The Sun’ and the ‘Hit That/Original Prankster’ medley before giant inflatable skeletons appeared for a fantastic rendition of ‘Hammerhead’, which included an extended bridge. The only other song of the night from ‘SUPERCHARGED’, ‘Make It All Right’ followed (with blue and white confetti on the final chorus) and a furious performance of ‘Bad Habit’, with Dexter of course allowing the crowd to singalong with him on the profanity riddled chorus!
Noodles then led the band in some brief covers in tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne – portions of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ and Ozzy’s own ‘Crazy Train’ – before a relentless performance of ‘In The Hall Of The Mountain King’ – though not before listing Dexter’s achievements, including his recent doctorate, and introducing each member of the band (besides himself) as ‘Doctor’! Following a great cover of the Ramones ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ (the gorilla returning to the stage) and a show highlight in ‘Gotta Get Away‘ was a fantastic drum solo from Pertzborn ahead of a heartfelt and tender piano rendition of ‘Gone Away’ from Holland (‘Hey Jude‘ was at least one cover too many, though, not least as Holland‘s voice struggled to hit the right key throughout).
Heading into the final few songs, beach balls were launched into the crowd for ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job’, wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing white guys for perpetual fan favourite ‘Pretty Guy (For A White Guy)’ and a roof-raising rendition of ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’, with the crowd singing almost louder than the band and getting a circle pit going! After a short break, The Offspring returned to the stage for two more songs, with the blimp returning for ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’, and finishing with the classic ‘Self Esteem’. By the time The Offspring took one last bow before exiting the stage, they’d absolutely earned it!
The Offspring return to the UK next summer for a (currently) single date in London, headlining an epic line up including Dropkick Murphys, Pennywise, PUP and Destroy Boys, with tickets on sale from Friday 21st November.
