DeKALB | In rain and thunder, Angels and Airwaves performed Friday night to a sparse crowd at the Convocation Center.

At 9:55 p.m., Kevin Selover, assistant director of marketing at the Convo, made an announcement that the headlining act was running a bit late. At 10:40 p.m. the arena’s lights dimmed and the intro of “Valkyrie Missile” began to play. After two songs, Tom DeLonge (ex-blink 182, ex-Box Car Racer) introduced the band and admitted that, regardless of an airport shutting down, the band will land and play.

Wade Stark and Josh Pearcy of Mattoon, Ill., traveled several hours to see Angels and Airwaves.

“I’ve been a huge Tom DeLonge fan since blink 182 and once I heard the new [Angels and Airwaves] CD I thought it was amazing,” Stark said.

“They have a sound all of their own,” Pearcy added.

The support of the fans due to the musicians’ past projects was evident. Charlotte Eltoft and Chelsi Flemm of Lombard, Ill., wore homemade orange “We Love Thomas DeLonge” shirts which included a pronunciation key.

“We want to see blink [182] back together,” Eltoft said.

The long set, which finished at midnight, consisted of 13 songs and revolved around the four musicians’ collaborative new direction. From start to finish, the set was heavily influenced by space theatrics. All of the songs on the band’s debut album, “We Don’t Need to Whisper,” were performed.

A slanted ramp led up to drummer Atom Willard’s white kit on which DeLonge portrayed an astronaut — his back turned to the crowd embracing his custom hollow-body guitar. Bleached-blond bassist Ryan Sinn added keyboard melodies, vocal harmonies and tambourine rattles to a few songs.

Throughout the set, DeLonge shared with the audience the meaning behind certain songs, a few jokes and motivational preaching about being yourself while pursuing dreams amongst his spaceman walks parading with a wireless microphone. Guitarist David Kennedy joined DeLonge for a duo performance of “There Is,” originally written for the Box Car Racer project. DeLonge also played a solo rendition of “Down” from blink 182’s last self-titled release.

As the evening progressed, the floor crowd slowly became more vigorous. Several participants were launched into the air for the purpose of crowd surfing and a circle pit started during the band’s closing song, “The War.” Overall, Angels and Airwaves’ large arena-produced sound was able to fill the arena, but not all of the seats.

Swedish-quintet The Sounds opened with a dragged-out set including leg kicks and accent-heavy expletives by vocalist Maja Ivarsson. The group’s new-wave repertoire highlighted Jesper Anderberg’s synthesizers and an occasional saxophone enhanced several songs. The band finished its set with Anderberg and guitarist Felix Rodriguez pounding on electronic songs.

Long Island-based quintet Envy on the Coast also performed, playing songs from its current EP.