Thursday, October 31

Tacoma Goes Boom

By Dave Finger
EXPN.com

Boom Boom! Like a shot and echo rung from a cannon. That's what a crowd of 11,500 people was shouting at the top of their lungs as one of the craziest, most choreographed, highly integrated and conceptual trans-sport entertainment spectacles went down right in front of their saucer-eyed faces. This is Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huckjam at the tour's October 10th stop in Tacoma, Washington.

Tony reeled them in, all of them. I'm talking Moms, Dads, kids, teens and twentysomethings. They were all there. And for good reason, like me they all wanted to see what this whole thing was all about. While the mainstream press was trying to figure out what BoomBoom Huckjam meant, I was wondering how this show was going to go down. I knew there was gonna be this all-star lineup: Tony Hawk, Bucky Lasek, Brian Howard, Andy Macdonald, Lincoln Ueda, Mat Hoffman, Dave Mirra, Kevin Robinson, John Parker, Carey Hart, Mike Cinqmars, Ronnie Faisst, Dustin Miller and Rick Thorne as emcee. But I didn't know how they were gonna blend their individual skills and talents together to demo for the crowd.

Tony Hawk cleans a big backside ollie on the ramp.

It's not a contest and it's not a session at your local spot and it's not like anything that's happened before. I mean The Offspring were playing tonight and DEVO was signed on for the San Diego stop. The tour can't fit into one specific description so I asked Tony what he wanted people to think when they were fighting arena traffic on their way home,

"Hopefully that they've seen something unique and exciting and something that they didn't really expect. That they came thinking, 'Oh I'm gonna see some good action' and then leave having seen stuff that was way beyond what they expected."

The Huckjam athletes sessioned as the band played and this is what the whole thing looked like from the press box.

Word. Passing a fleet of tour buses on my way into the venue I kind of had some expectations set because I followed the action from the proto-show that went down in Vegas a couple of months back. But once the show started and I sat there in person, the reality of the skill and the consequence of the action soaked in like the flavor packet in a boiling pot of Ramen noodles. Moto bikes jumping over the super wide, ultra custom vert ramp while a train of skateboard and bike riders flow in perfect harmony? What? It gives me that little rush of adreanalized excitement just thinking about it. Then my mind immediately went to the worst case scenario - Moto guys getting wrecked either clipping one of the vert riders in mid flight or coming up short. The vert rider getting tossed to flat and the Moto rider… I don't even want to finish that thought. Nothing like this has happened but Carey Hart knows the "get broken" potential of the ramp set up inside and out,

Moto X in your areas - Cinq, Hart, Faisst and Miller over the ramp all at once.

"Yeah I was the guinea pig (on jumping over the vert ramp), I was actually the first one to hit it. It was gnarly, like I hit it and stomped it pretty good then the next kid up overshot it and busted his jaw in eight places. Plus we had a couple of close calls, like me and Mat (Hoffman) had a really close one last night. We almost came together in the air, it was close, I was coming in on him but those are just like one-off things. We're tight now."

There was another close call between Hoffman and Cinq at the very next stop in San Jose, but since then the crew has got their timing issues worked out and everyone is feeling good again with the whole program.

It's really difficult to explain what exactly the show is. Some are comparing it to Circe du Soleil, some say the Warped Tour - I say it has elements of each but stands alone because it puts the skills of the athletes first. Plus, there really hasn't ever been a nationally touring arena skateboarding/bmx/moto show set to a live band… ever.

Dave Mirra tailwhips over Mat Hoffman - all star bmx doubles.

Tony has put a lot on the line to do this thing and at the preliminary show in Vegas the Huckjam was still just proof of concept… Few would argue that the concept is not appealing but it's really too early to say whether the tour is a success or not. One thing can be said though - the energy level is high and riders like Dave Mirra are stoked,

"This is the real tour and that (Vegas) was just the teaser, so now it's on. It's an awesome show with lots of energy… I'm amped, so let's see what happens."

Keep spreading that stoke boys. Bring it to the families of America - spectators, participants, young, old, whatever. Bring that stoke to the people, even if it's only for one $25-$75 night.

Related Photos:
The Big Show in Pictures
Vert Destruction from the T-Dome.