On Oct. 24, the San Diego Sports Arena, which usually plays host to both sporting events and concerts, held a unique combination of the two when Tony Hawk and his Boom Boom Huckjam Tour came to town.
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The event combined the top athletes from skateboarding, BMX and motocross with the ’80s band Devo for an event that some of the athletes had been dreaming about for some time.
“”Mat Hoffman, Tony [Hawk] and I used to do demos in Santa Rosa every year,”” said Andy MacDonald, a seven-time X-Games gold medalist in skateboarding. “”We always thought that we could take this to a whole new level, but nobody had the means to do it. Because of the sales of a certain video game, Tony has the means to do it now. It’s great to be a part of it.””
San Diego is known as a hotbed for the sports showcased on the tour. For Hawk and others who reside in the area, the San Diego stop on the tour was a sort of homecoming.
“”I got to do my home show in Oklahoma,”” said Hoffman, who is nicknamed the “”Condor.”” “”For a lot of the guys, this is their home show. It’s one of the most nerve-racking shows you do. If you mess up, your family and friends are the first ones to call it.””
Hawk didn’t disappoint the hometown crowd in the near-full Sports Arena. During the Devo Jam Session, which was a free-for-all for the athletes, Hawk pulled a 900 after several failed attempts and the hometown crowd on its feet. For MacDonald, moves like that make this show stand out from the competition.
“”Falling’s part of the show,”” said MacDonald, a San Diego resident. “”We’ll be falling, but we’ll be trying some of the hardest stuff and really pushing our limits, whereas in a competition format, it’s a little more reserved and the idea is not to fall.””
BMX legend Dave Mirra explained the difference between participating in a competitive event and a show like the Boom Boom Huckjam Tour.
“”Contests have their place. I think it’s the hardest form of riding,”” Mirra said. “”Obviously this is the best thing in the world, but I’ve enjoyed riding contests a lot.””
Hoffman agreed, saying that he prefers the atmosphere of something like Tony Hawk’s tour over a competition.
“”I rode contests for 20 years,”” Hoffman said. “”In contests, it’s so formatted. Here, you can just ride. It’s like controlled chaos … I really enjoy this stuff.””
Hoffman, like Hawk, has a video game with his name on it.
“”Video games have immortalized the sport,”” Hoffman said. “”You notice people who can experience the sport through video games. I never realized the best way to promote our sport was to come out with a kick-ass video game.””
But unlike the video game, a hard fall in real life can be a very painful.
“”I got knocked out at the last show,”” Mirra said of the San Antonio show three days earlier. “”I got worked. Sometimes you push too hard when you’re not feeling it. I had to get knocked silly to tone it down a little bit. There’s something about the live music that puts you in a different state of mind.””
Another athlete shared Mirra’s excitement about the band.
“”It’s cool to have Offspring and Face to Face [both of whom performed earlier in the tour], but Devo is my favorite,”” skateboarder Bucky Lasek said. “”They were playing while we were warming up, and I was feeling it.””
The tour is a chance for the combination of so many forms of entertainment, but athletes are also using it as an opportunity to reach out and have an influence in the cities they travel to. MacDonald is the first athlete spokesman for the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
“”I went to them about the idea. I’d seen some of the new commercials with Chuck D., Lauryn Hill and Public Enemy,”” MacDonald said. “”They weren’t just like the frying pan commercials, and I got excited about it and called them. A lot of people see it and say ‘Wait a minute. You’re a skateboarder and you don’t use drugs?’ It was a chance to get the message out — not only the anti-drug message, but also the skateboarding message that we don’t all use drugs.””
In the finale of the show, five skateboarders, four BMX riders and four motocross riders flew, spun and flipped through the arena air simultaneously while crowds of all ages stood and cheered for the sports legends. In an area that produced its prodigal son in Hawk, the world of extreme sports gave San Diego something it had never seen before.
