The House Skatepark Heshpool Jam/Holy Stoked Fundraiser
A summers evening skate jam with live punk music in an UK indoor skatepark as a backing is pretty much as good as a situation gets for me, so when The House Skatepark decided to host a combined skate jam and gig in order to raise funds for skateboard charity Holy Stoked I immediately penciled it in.
Heading up during what would turn out to be the start of the first proper summer heatwave, we managed to take it easy at a couple of spots on the way up and keep the heatstroke at bay so were ready to enter the concrete greenhouse fuelled by a combination of cold beer and the furious sounds emanating from the small, walled off square in the corner. Actually for the moment, it was just the cold beer…a couple of bands pulling out meant some last minute switch ups in the line-up, as well as the few of us who’d turned up early trying to walk the tightrope of remembering the bowl’s lines and not absolutely knackering ourselves in the searing heat to the classic ‘Slayer on the sound system’ back up.
The weather didn’t deter a solid crew from attempting to hurt themselves in the name of skateboarding and the band list was soon condensed and crystallized into Sheffield garage punks Rob & Natas and Leeds-based raging hardcore assault of Hex. Dean Greensmith, Brendan Watson and Jozef Szklaruk fed off the tunes and each other and annihilated every corner of the bowl, somehow without annihilating themselves despite pushing the session to the edge of crash test carnage.
With the traditional jam format abandoned in the form of a raffle, everyone was freed from the shackles of ‘safety tricks’ and able to battle whatever gnarliness came to mind. Brendan’s edge of the seat spontaneity was a thing to behold, while Dean’s flip indy over the hip imprinted itself onto the eyeballs of both skateboarders and assorted Sheffield punks who were there to bring the hype – if you haven’t checked out what The Lughole crew have been doing for music in the Steel City, get to know! Dave Morgan bought the Wakey hype in lieu of the rest of the WUG crew being busy or on the injury bench, while Sam Mason’s back tail shuvit in the deep end dropped a few jaws. Seeing Dead Dave cruising on home territory is always a treat, especially when you know he’s got insane reservoir spots lined up for you on the following day. The Bad Boi Cru may have been rolling with a few missing members that night, but it still rolled hard!
Once the dust settled, the prizes had been raffled off and the burger fanny tattoos had been revealed, £300 had been raised for the charity. This was just the kind of grass roots event that gets me hyped on skateboarding, big ups to The House and to the bands that played, crew that ripped it and, in fact, everyone involved!
Track: Fever by Rob & Natas – check out their Bandcamp page here.
