EXPN.COM and DEMO DAZE
What I am about to say might make you think I am a raving lunatic but hear me out. A very long time ago there was no Internet, no YouTube, no message boards. And somehow skateboarding managed to survive. How? I have no idea. Videos came out once every few years while the magazines tried to sustain skater's yearning for more: more images, more information, more anything skateboarding. Back in the '80s and early '90s the only way to see an actual, moving, pro skater (not on a VHS tape) was to catch a demo. Demos were essential to skateboarding.
- Chris Nieratko for Expn.go.com
Our eyes were fixed on Ron Chatman, Jeremy Klein and Randy Colvin but Rodney was determined to win us over. So he skated over to my group of friends and asked us to name any trick combination and he would try it. We laughed. We thought he was kidding. And we were nervous. That's what nervous kids do; they laugh. We'd never spoken to a real live pro skater, so we were a bit freaked out. Rodney seemed freaked out too; he fidgeted like he was as nervous as we were. Then he said,
"No really, name anything and I'll try it. I don't know if I can do it but I'll try."
The first thing called out was kickflip nose manual to 360 shove-it to manual. Rodney looked confused so the tricks were repeated. He raised his hand for us to wait a second. He wasn't confused, he just needed to see the line in his head. When he had the mental picture, Rodney put the skateboard down and did what was asked of him first try. Nowadays a lot of people can do that combination of tricks but 19 years ago it blew our minds. From there it was on: tré flip manual kickflip out land back in manual, heelflip primo bigspin to nose wheelie and so on. And Rodney would just nail them, one after another. I can still see it clear as day in my head.
In today's world you can chat with Jamie Thomas on the Slap messageboard if you want to. It's pretty awesome. But more awesome is when the pros come to your town and put on a show. That live experience is still unbeatable. Recently we had the Red Bull team come to my shop, NJ Skateshop. I spoke with Red Bull riders, Danny Supa, Ron Deily, Zered Basset and Nick Dompierre and had them recall their favorite demo memories.
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