Journey’s Backyard BBQ w/ P.O.D, Tony Alva, Christian Hosoi & more – May 26th – Grapevine Mills Mall – Grapevine, TX
So I get back to Texas the night before and in time to do this DJ gig that I would have probably otherwise turned down. Not that I’m in any position to turn down any gig mind you. What I mean is that if your a singer in a band sometimes you take gigs to sing at weddings etc – This was the DJ equivalent to that.
However still a fun day with nothing to complain about – I got paid to play records outdoors while I watched some of my oldest heroes, whom I thought I’d never see perform right in front of me. What a wonderful world.
Though I’m not its demographic in taste, style nor age – I have to say just as a consumer they had some really fun things to enjoy. Their was an above ground pool that you could swim in and actually watch the bands from, an exciting motocross team doing crazy jumps, a booth where you can design you own pair of shoes and tons more.However their was one thing that was totally for a guy my age that grew up a skate fan in the 80s and that was to my astonishment that two of the featured skaters were the original kings of it all Tony Alva & Christian Hosoi. What was so cool about it was that their appearance wasn’t promoted as some sort of cheesy Legends of Skating kinda deal. In a pre Tony Hawk world these guys ruled and of course Alva being one of the original Z-Boys. If you told my 14 year old Thrasher Magazine subscribing self that I’d been standing at the top of a half-pipe photographing these guys 25 years later, my head would have exploded. So I thought it was cool they didn’t try to exploit that, and they looked good and could still perform they didn’t seem out of place so I think that these guys were legends in their 50s was lost on the majority, making it that much cooler.
Compare this pic from the Alva in him prime on the cover of Fu Manchu’s The Action is Go LP –
After the skaters I had two brief sets to do and then went to check out the Metal Mulisha Freestyle Motocross demos.
These guys were really impressive and everytime they did some insane jump the whole crowd would collectively exhale when they landed safely as I swear it appeared that everytime that them making it was tentative and it made my heart race.
One last set before finishing up for the day and heading over the stage at the end where a couple of bands were setup to play. Again this is tough tour to keep a band on so they had one opener Marianas Trench doing the first half of the tour and Hit the Lights doing the second half, with a unique headliner in each city.
This being the first date, we got Marianas Trench and headliners P.O.D.
Marianas Trench could be considered a parody but unfortunately for them they are repping their hopelessly dated-to-this-period brand of Hot Topic mall-rawk to the fullest. Their is nothing original about them, completely embarrassing (and Canadian) and have the depth and importance of this year’s Swatch.
P.O.D who are actually a pretty decent band, however are in no better shape. After adopting that whole Korn/Deftones but hey we’re Christians gig, they appear as like elder statesmen to the Warped Tour generation. Decent band who put on a decent show but completely irrelevant.