The hall is packed.
Stuffed full of wild teens.
The nu punk rock generation.

A gaggle of 12 year old kids swap hair tips with your author while a seething mass of fresh-faced disciples of the fast guitar prepare for action. Primed and ready, the buzz is intense. The latest in an ever growing army of U.S. exports, Blink 182 are huge Fucking huge.

While the critics rave about lo fi, the real action, the real fun, seems to be over here. Sure, some of these bands may be dumb (or may be playing dumb), they may pepper their songs with crass, clumsy jokes, but when they kick into action, they also kick some ass.

Blink 182 are powerful.
Adrenalin-rush powerful.

As the 21st century kicks off, we have a punk rock band in the U.S. Top 10. Following in the footsteps of Green Day and The Offspring, Blink have taken the powerful guitar and sweet melody chassis so beloved of the Yank punk rock scene and turned it into something massive. Punk purists may hate them.

After all, they have signed to a major label, they tell smutty jokes, they have daft songs... And they are hugely popular. But how far away is that from the original spirit of punk anyway? How different is that from the 'classic' bands, the originators - like The Ramones, with their cartoon idiocy and bizarre lyrical obsessions? Blink 182 tell dirty jokes and make lots of money.

They also make brilliant pop records and get a fucking good-time riot going live - and it's for these last two reasons that we are here to celebrate them.

Backstage at Manchester Academy, we're sat in a tiny dressing room. We're expecting a barrage of filthy jokes and wacky behaviour. We've come armed with the dirtiest and vilest put-downs known to the human race.

Of course, it turns out that the band are nice, clean-cut, earnest boys. The only one who looks slightly crazy is drummer Travis Barker, and he doesn't do interviews.

He has got the best tattoos, though. In six months, Blink 182 have gone from packing the 250-capacity Manchester Roadhouse (where band and crowd kicked the venue's roof in with a celebration of good time punka rocka), to being one of the biggest bands in the world.

Famous for wearing only their undies, having erratic tats and a penchant for pop-punk, Blink hit paydirt last year with their Enema Of The State album.

Having formed way back in 1991, when bassist Mark Hoppus hooked up with the then 14 year old singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge, the band have certainly paid their dues. Learning their punk rock from Descendents records, they started gigging in their native San Diego. Quickly getting a rep for dumb onstage fooling, they were signed to The Vandals' Kung Fu label. Moving over to Cargo Records, they released their Cheshire Cat debut. The album broke them in Australia, of all places, a burst of popularity which saw them, controversially for a punk rock-rooted band, sign to major label MCA (now called Universal).

Their major debut Dude Ranch went platinum in Oz and gold Stateside. Blink 182 were now big-time. Their puerile arsing about had actually endeared them to a whole new generation of mini-punkers, if distanced them far from the elder statesmen of the scene.

While their credibility may be a touch besmirched, their accessibility has gone from strength to strength. The band hail from San Diego, the southernmost city in California, where America just about meets Mexico. The city that has already given the world Rocket From The Crypt sounds idyllic compared to the mean streets of Manchester.

"It's not rainy and cold like here," laughs DeLonge in that quietly intense and controlled way American bands have mastered.

"San Diego is rad. It's very suburban. Lots of beaches, lots of surfers... lots of movie theatres. It's the suburbs. San Diego seems to have more nicer areas than any other city in America."

So that's Crime No.1 in punk purist eyes: the band are middle-class and not afraid to admit it. In the nice, easygoing suburbs of San Diego and Southern California, something has always stirred. Right from the inception of punk rock, it has, ironically, thrived here.

"It's a huge punk population. It's bigger in Southern California than anywhere else, apart from Quebec. It's because South Cal has so many skateboarders; the music scene is so big there because you are right next to Los Angeles and San Francisco - the centre of the entertainment industry. All these kids surfing, skating and snowboarding are into alternative lifestyles. They don't want to listen to the radio, they want to listen to edgier things."

This idyllic world, a million miles away from the angsty urban shitholes that spawned punk rock, has actually taken the form to its heart and propelled it into the new millennium. Back in the late '70s, there were shocked reports of posh punkers in California; wild and wacky bands of moneyed toffs playing some great thrills 'n' spills punk rock.

The first band of any note was L.A.'s Black Flag who, after a series of frontmen, eventually featured Henry Rollins as their singer and toured incessantly, building a national U.S. platform for punk rock/hardcore. San Francisco pitched in with the archly political Dead Kennedys, but it was the poppier punk rock rushes of the Descendents that left their hallmark on the paradise punker scene.

"The Descendents are the band that got us all into punk rock. They are the band that we really related to when we were growing up. They basically started the whole California scene," Tom explains. "When you hear the music and look at them, they are nothing like what you expect," admires Mark. "That's what's so rad about it - it's so unassuming. No look at all. They were these dorkish guys playing this fast, edgy music just because they wanted to be different. They sang about food and girls and were catchy and upbeat before anyone else did," adds Tom.

The Descendents basically set the blueprint for the Californian punk sound, a sound that crystallised with the formation of Epitaph Records, a label put together by members of primetime punk rockers Bad Religion.

Epitaph was the first punk rock label that was organised. Hooking bands onto snowboard videos, it captured the adrenalin-sport zeitgeist and grabbed a whole new teenage wave. Through the success of bands like The Offspring and, to a lesser extent, Pennywise and a whole host of the Epitaph bands, there was a sea change. Green Day, who were signed to a major, sold millions.

Punk rock, albeit a very different punk rock, had gone mainstream. But 'mainstream' is an ugly word in punk rock. The snobs will do anything to keep the music to themselves. And although there must be certain reservations when signing to the ugly world of major corporations, Blink 182 have got to survive.

At the end of the day, bands get tired of the jibes of 'sell-out' hurled at them by critics with well-paid jobs, who probably support moneybags football teams like Man. United and have no qualms about watching million dollar actors in the Hollywood dream machine... Nope, when it comes to musicians, there seems to be a very different rulebook in operation.

DeLonge is baffled by the contradictions. "I try and tell kids, 'The Clash, Sex Pistols and the Ramones did it, so how come we can't?' If people are bummed, we don't care. It's normally critics. Older critics..." For Blink 182, the political baggage of punk rock is something they have no interest in.

"Politics and music should be separate," they argue. "That whole P.C., vegetarian, anti-drug, straight-edge, do-it-yourself... All those weird things I'm not interested in. I'd rather be in a band and have a cool attitude and act in an way that the kids can relate to." Blink 182 are no dummies. There is a quiet intelligence at play here. They play dumb when it's needed. They put on the Benny Hill masks and leap onstage. They are in love with punk rock music. But let's not forget how play-dumb the so-called 'classic' punk bands like the Pistols and the Ramones really were. It took punk an awful long time to break America - but when it finally broke, five years ago, it broke to stay.

When America finally found a form of punk rock that it was more comfortable with, it took to it big-time. In the suburbs of America, comfortable, middle-class white kids don't want to hear about 'no future' or a fucked-up world.

They are living in a fucking paradise. A dream world. Y2K punk, U.S.-style, soundtracks this, and that's why it's now big-moolah music. DeLonge ponders on punk's long and torturous root to his front door. "The Sex Pistols opened up the doors and the next wave of bands came along... and we're even angrier. That was very much a New York/East Coast thing; the West Coast scene was not so angry. Every new punk band had a new angle and got more poppier and learned to play. Bad Religion started the oohs and aahs and the real crazy vocals. The Californian middle-class suburbs have nothing to be that bummed about. New York is gloomy, dark and cold. It makes different music."

Blink 182 are successfully exporting the American dream of good times around the world. The dream of endless sun and surf and pretty girls. Of living in cities where the only adrenalin rush is from good times. They have chosen to soundtrack it with punk rock - the perfect music for good times. Rock 'n' roll in its stripped-down, purest form. They don't have to be innovative. They don't have to be angry. They just make you feel good. The album "Enema Of The State" and the single "All The Small Things" (both on Universal) can be found somewhere in the Top 20 of a chart near you.