When the punk trio Blink-182 broke up, fans didn’t get a sequel. They got a grudge match. Tom DeLonge, guitarist and singer, formed Angels and Airwaves. Mark Hoppus, bassist and singer, stuck with the drummer, Travis Barker, to form +44.

Angels and Airwaves played a pretty good show at the Bowery Ballroom in May. And on Tuesday night, +44 arrived there and played a pretty awful show. That settles that, right?

Not quite. First, we should make an allowance for Mr. Barker, who recently injured his arm. On this tour he is playing — hard — with one arm, like Rick Allen from Def Leppard. Except that Mr. Allen’s band didn’t play pop-punk; Mr. Barker has to hit the snare drum twice as often. (Then again, his injury is, with any luck, temporary.) It was also Mr. Barker’s 31st birthday, but he gets no special consideration on that account.

He got some help from a half-hidden assistant triggering beats and riffs from a laptop. But Mr. Hoppus has never been a very precise bass player; without a fully functioning drummer, these songs didn’t chug, they just trudged.

The debut album by +44, “When Your Heart Stops Beating” (Interscope), was released on Tuesday. It’s zippier and catchier than the Angels and Airwaves album, full of snappy pop-punk songs like “Cliff Diving” and the title track.

In “No, It Isn’t,” Mr. Hoppus seems to be singing about that guy from that other band. It begins, “Please understand/This isn’t just goodbye/This is I can’t stand you.” Hmm, that’s pretty good. Advantage: Hoppus.

But then, there he was onstage, reminding everyone that he sings best on record. Mr. Hoppus’s casual-sounding voice has always been part of the appeal, but on Tuesday night he often missed the notes he was straining for. A version of “Weatherman,” one of the album’s longest songs, seemed to last forever. (It wasn’t a blissful forever, either.) Mr. DeLonge’s faux-Bono stage act may be ludicrous, but he knows how to deliver a tune.

Let’s not kid ourselves, though. Neither of these bands is as good as Blink-182. Not yet, anyway. You can tell why these three — the furious drummer, the affable bass player, the preening guitarist — made a good band in the first place. If we call it a tie, will that bring a Blink-182 reunion any closer?