rehearsals.
After the last rehearsal, when everything was packed, we stepped outside the hangar and took in the sight of the huge convoy of trucks and buses, all ready to roll. I think that may have been the first time the Talking Heads song ran through my head.
In addition to Social D and Offspring, Jim had managed to pull in Face to Face, Good Charlotte, and CKY to play at various stops along the way. Just before the final tour plans were cemented, Jim asked me, “What do you think about Devo?” I thought he was joking. Devo had been one of my favorite bands growing up. They were deeply connected to the underground skate scene of the early 1980s, but I’d never had a chance to see them play because I was so young, and they hadn’t toured in years. I thought Jim was crazy, but he said, “I’ll call Mark.” Meaning Mark Mothersbaugh, the band’s co-founder? In my mind, that was the equivalent of saying, “Maybe we should get Zep—I’ll call Robert and Jimmie.” Devo ended up playing two dates with us, Anaheim and my hometown of San Diego. When they played the SD show, it was my dream demo: friends and family in the crowd and one of my favorite bands playing on the deck. That night, I pulled my first 900 of the tour.
Trial by Fire—and by the Loop of Death
It didn’t take long to realize, though, that our plans for the first HuckJam tour were stupidly ambitious: too many big-name bands (with their crews, gear, and personalized sound checks) and too many goofy sideshows each night. During set changes, for instance, we had mimes sweep the ramps with giant brooms, hot models in skin-tight space suits walking around with signs introducing each show segment, and a weird mid-arena lounge area where the athletes were supposed to relax between sessions while being interviewed by emcees.
On top of all that, our ramp system covered the entire arena floor, which meant that at each venue we had to install lights to illuminate about four times more space than the typical rock band. And that, of course, required more workers and more money. The first few dress rehearsals were incredibly dangerous, with airborne motorcycles just missing crew members running to change sets. We ended up using spotters and buying red-yellow-green stoplights to avoid mishaps.
Also, we were so thankful to have sponsors that we made some embarrassing compromises to keep them happy. We initially agreed to give out free Squeeze-N-Go pudding samples during intermission, and to have our emcee, Rick Thorne, lead the audience in a “SQUEEZE AND GO!” chant. That made everybody cringe, including most of the spectators, so I asked Pat to tell the Squeeze-N-Go people that we needed to kill the chant. Before the second tour started, BMX star Dave Mirra went through all of the rehearsals, collected his rehearsal pay, and then, on the day before we were flying out, announced that he was leaving to host a reality show on MTV. That was about as pissed as I’ve ever been, because he’d kept it a secret and because his replacement wouldn’t have time to memorize our routines, which put all of the performers at risk. In another stroke of luck, we persuaded BMX legend Dennis McCoy (who had been cut earlier to make room for a newer rider) to sub for Mirra. Dennis hopped on a plane in Kansas City, studied the routines on video while flying, learned them in one day, and kicked ass the whole tour. He remains a key HuckJam performer to this day.
As the tours progressed, we experimented with more complicated routines that included BMX and skate simultaneously. Andy, Lincoln, K-Rob, and I even attempted a quadruple stack, in which we tried to ride above and below each other on the same side of the ramp at the same instant. Kevin came down on Andy’s back and severely rolled his ankle. I ended up carving too far trying to dodge the other three guys and went off the side of the ramp. That was our lone attempt at a four-way.
But there were emotional high points as
After the last rehearsal, when everything was packed, we stepped outside the hangar and took in the sight of the huge convoy of trucks and buses, all ready to roll. I think that may have been the first time the Talking Heads song ran through my head.
In addition to Social D and Offspring, Jim had managed to pull in Face to Face, Good Charlotte, and CKY to play at various stops along the way. Just before the final tour plans were cemented, Jim asked me, “What do you think about Devo?” I thought he was joking. Devo had been one of my favorite bands growing up. They were deeply connected to the underground skate scene of the early 1980s, but I’d never had a chance to see them play because I was so young, and they hadn’t toured in years. I thought Jim was crazy, but he said, “I’ll call Mark.” Meaning Mark Mothersbaugh, the band’s co-founder? In my mind, that was the equivalent of saying, “Maybe we should get Zep—I’ll call Robert and Jimmie.” Devo ended up playing two dates with us, Anaheim and my hometown of San Diego. When they played the SD show, it was my dream demo: friends and family in the crowd and one of my favorite bands playing on the deck. That night, I pulled my first 900 of the tour.
Trial by Fire—and by the Loop of Death
It didn’t take long to realize, though, that our plans for the first HuckJam tour were stupidly ambitious: too many big-name bands (with their crews, gear, and personalized sound checks) and too many goofy sideshows each night. During set changes, for instance, we had mimes sweep the ramps with giant brooms, hot models in skin-tight space suits walking around with signs introducing each show segment, and a weird mid-arena lounge area where the athletes were supposed to relax between sessions while being interviewed by emcees.
On top of all that, our ramp system covered the entire arena floor, which meant that at each venue we had to install lights to illuminate about four times more space than the typical rock band. And that, of course, required more workers and more money. The first few dress rehearsals were incredibly dangerous, with airborne motorcycles just missing crew members running to change sets. We ended up using spotters and buying red-yellow-green stoplights to avoid mishaps.
Also, we were so thankful to have sponsors that we made some embarrassing compromises to keep them happy. We initially agreed to give out free Squeeze-N-Go pudding samples during intermission, and to have our emcee, Rick Thorne, lead the audience in a “SQUEEZE AND GO!” chant. That made everybody cringe, including most of the spectators, so I asked Pat to tell the Squeeze-N-Go people that we needed to kill the chant. Before the second tour started, BMX star Dave Mirra went through all of the rehearsals, collected his rehearsal pay, and then, on the day before we were flying out, announced that he was leaving to host a reality show on MTV. That was about as pissed as I’ve ever been, because he’d kept it a secret and because his replacement wouldn’t have time to memorize our routines, which put all of the performers at risk. In another stroke of luck, we persuaded BMX legend Dennis McCoy (who had been cut earlier to make room for a newer rider) to sub for Mirra. Dennis hopped on a plane in Kansas City, studied the routines on video while flying, learned them in one day, and kicked ass the whole tour. He remains a key HuckJam performer to this day.
As the tours progressed, we experimented with more complicated routines that included BMX and skate simultaneously. Andy, Lincoln, K-Rob, and I even attempted a quadruple stack, in which we tried to ride above and below each other on the same side of the ramp at the same instant. Kevin came down on Andy’s back and severely rolled his ankle. I ended up carving too far trying to dodge the other three guys and went off the side of the ramp. That was our lone attempt at a four-way.
But there were emotional high points as
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