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Skate News
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July 17, 2007 - Black Label and Innes "Walk the Line" AM tour rolled into Orem, UT for a signing and demo. Story by David Benson
The signing was pretty laid back. There was a small group of kids around two white plastic picnic tables where Adam Alfaro, Donavan Rice, Peter Raffin, Woody Butwillowski, Peter Watkins, Steven Reeves and Tyler Mumma sat with sharpies in hand waiting to sign autographs. Now being that this was an over priced mall shop, there was a wide variety of local skaters, posers and 12 year old girls that had no clue as to what was going on. After the crowd got their fill of free posters covered in John Handcocks every one that actually skateboards made their way over to Orem Park. I’m sure all the posers went to the near by food court and paid $6.00 bucks for one slice of pizza. It took Black Label/Innes guys about 30 minute to get to the Orem Park where we were waiting for them. There were an above average number of skateboarders at the park. Kids from all over the surrounding areas showed up ready for the big show. There were even some kids from California that were just following the “Walk the Line” tour trying to get noticed or picked up which is a pretty good idea. Tailing the Black Label/Inness AM's tour would be a hell of a lot of fun. You'd get to skate with some rad dudes at a ton of new spots, parks and maybe even some backyard pools. You'd probably end up hanging out with the touring skaters and you might make some valuable friends.
When the “Black Label Innes” team showed up everyone was stoked and curious if this was an AM tour, but that fact ends up in the fine print. I think kids where expecting Chet Childless, Matt Mumford and Jason Adams "the kid" (Good to have you back on the label Jason.) You know the big names. At first the “Black Label and Innes” guys just rolled around looking at the park thinking and planning tricks for the layout of the park. Most of the kids looked skeptical until Adam Alfaro decided he was ready to rip this little park a new one. He was throwing backside 270 nose grab transfers so fast my cheap camera could not keep up with all the chaos. Then Donavan Rice decided to boneless from the top of the tallest box in the park into the long pill shaped bowl. Why’ll the “Black Label/Innes” guys and Adam Alfro the only pro present where just getting used to the flow of a park they’d never ridden the blindside boys and some other locals exploited the home court advantage trying as hard as they could to keep up. They did a pretty good job of it. I witnessed locals pull tricks that I’d never seen them try before. It was cool that every one got to ride with these guys during the demo. It was so laid back that even all the Joe Blows that joined in got a trick or two. Dodging little 5 year old kids on scoters and bikes is common even for the tour guys. The “Black Label and Innes” team where way nice making small talk with the locals and even giving props to the gnarly ones in between lines.
If you know the “Black Label and Innes” team you know what type of skating was going down. These guys are raw, creative, classic, yet unpredictable, and reckless. Sometimes they seemed to make tricks up as they went, just to keep from falling. There was almost no street action. It was mostly killer tran skating. It was very hard to shoot photos especially since I only had my Cannon Rebel, it is not made for action shots like this. Regrettably I could not get a hold of those D200's that we used at the flip demo two weeks earlier. So sorry the photos are not half as good as they could be and I missed a lot of sweet tricks all together do to a lack of equipment. I did my best. These guys are off the wall.
When the dust settled and Peter Watkins, Adam Alfro, Tyler Mumma, Donavan Rice, Steven Reeves, Woody Butwillowski and Peter Raffin where beat. They ended the demo by climbing on top of the roof of the Orem park bathroom and as at the end ever demo they throw free stuff to the crowd of greedy kids snatching stickers out of the air and off the ground like an ATM had just exploded. I guess it is all relative the stickers would probably cost a dollar or two if you bought them. I even picked up two black label stickers they are pretty sick.
After the “Black Label and Innes” called it a day they made thier way down to Las Vegas for thier last stop on the “Walk the Line” AM tour. I hope they skate Desert Breeze park while they are there.
Sorry if you missed it. Check out some rad black label products in the Black Label section and don’t forget to see Adam in “Black in Black” the newest label film. The Steven Reeves part is worth a look.
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