Vans ‘Are We There Yet?’ Tour 2007 – Part 10: Montage

The Vans ‘Are We There Yet?‘ tour comes to an end in Newquay, with a montage of general tour silliness as well as some shredding at the artist formerly known as Wooden Waves. Ben Grove ollies over a ridiculous town centre handrail and straight into Cornish folklore, the masses hit Wooden Waves then it’s time for the city-hopper to take its final trip back up north…

Featuring Ben Grove, Kris Vile, Rogie, Chris Oliver, Marc Churchill, Pete King, Manhead, Ross McGouran, Howard Cooke and more, this is brings to a close one of our favourite UK tour videos of the 2000s. It seems like a long time since the days of skate teams hitting skateparks up and down the UK and, with so many new concrete parks having cropped up over the last few years, this kind of trip would have plenty of new grist for the mill. First company to make it happen (and invite me along for filming and comedic early grab flailing, obviously) wins an eternal place in my heart and maybe even a pint of Wetherspoons lager, ale, cider or beverage of their own choosing.

On the other hand – is there any excuse for use of Gogol Bordello in a skate video? Scroll down past the video for a few of the reasons that I find them unbearable.

1 –  They’re entire discography is based around one quite thin gimmick.

2 – They’re basically a band for drunk students to dance to in between K-holes at weekend festivals.

3 – Once you get right down to it, they couldn’t write a good hook if they tried.

4 – I sort of think that the ominous rise of tents at festivals which say ‘Balkan swing ska hip hop’ and are inevitably full of wankers are in some way related to the band and their fatuous combination of musical genres.