Here I am sitting in a mini van, listening to Nirvana while driving to Calgary, Canada from Seattle, the birthplace of Starbucks. It seems fitting to crank up Nirvana and reflect back on our demo in Grunge Town, seeing as it was Kurt Cobain's home town. Rain City Skate Park in downtown Seattle really lived up to the name "Rain City" because in true Pacific Northwest fashion it was raining! Rain, sleet or snow couldn't keep the crowd of 1000 from jam packing the old warehouse now converted into skate palace.

Mike Vallely

The place reminded me of a crusty fish house from the thirties. I expected the Gordon fish stick man to walk in at any time, but he was nowhere in sight. The street park was "sweet sauce", it had plenty of rails, ledges, and a couple of strategically placed fun boxes.

Once again Alex Chalmers, "the man on a mission" was hitting big frontside noseslides down the fun box in a stylee fashion. He was also killing 180 nosegrinds on another ledge in front of ESPN V.I.Ps, almost spilling their lattes. How about that Bam Margera kid? Bam is always finding something to hurl himself off of. This time it was the back of the vert ramp, about 15-16 feet in the air, above the street course. This death jump was as big as the one he attempted in Frankfurt Germany. Jackass hero Bam pulled this drop off within about 10 tries, something he was not able to do in Duetschland.

Bam Margera

Brian Sumner, on the other hand, had a clinic going on the square rail. Mike Vallely was feeding off the crowd and was tearing up the concrete on the street course like a 190-pound pavement breaker; did I mention I use to work in construction? The tour vegan, Steve Berra, was doing these kickflip boardslides that would have made The Gonz proud. To coin a term from the year 2000, the street demo was off the hook!

Alex Chalmers

The vert portion of the demo was as Bill and Ted would have said, "bodacious". The vert dogs consisted of Tony, Kevin Staab, Sean White, Donny Barley and Mike Vallely, yes, I said Mike Vallely. Mike can skate what ever he likes and nothing you can say will change that. Mike busted a 1-footed grab over the channel between the mini ramp and the vert ramp. Once again there was blood once again dripping from his swellbow. Donny Barley was trying to pull a frontside ally-oop on the same gap, unfortunately D.B didn't stick it, but he did however hit a backside ollie across the gap-tosses. Even Shaun White got into the action, clearing the now infamous gap. The highlight of the day was when tour master Tony Hawk pulled a backside 360-ollie-boardslide. I get dizzy just talking about it. Tony said that was the first time he has ever pulled that off at a demo of this magnitude. What a huge crowd, Seattle rocks! Next Stop #6, the final stop on the west coast leg of The Tony Hawk Gigantic Skate Park Tour. This time the boys will be in Calgary, Canada at The Millennium Skate Park. This is supposedly the largest skate park in all of North America. See you there! Check back to EXPN.com for all the details and photos.

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