How do you make an epic skate trip even more epic? You start it off by seeing your favorite band put on perhaps the best show you’ve ever seen them play! Everyone here knows I’m as big of a Dinosaur Jr fan as they come and when I found out that Dinosaur Jr would be playing in Boston the first night of my skate trip my excitement went through the roof. The first two days of Boston were rain, but it didn’t even matter, we saw Dinosaur Jr!

And did I tell you that Carleigh was in Boston for a day too! Awesome. Carleigh, Joe, Pat.

Carleigh took this photo of Joe, Pat, me and Charlie. And no, I wasn’t double fisting it.

Epic Bug shirt purchased.

OFF! opened and they killed it. OG Black Flag steez.

Did I mention I’m friends with the guitarist for OFF!? Dimitri rules.

The second part of the show was Henry Rollins interviewing Dinosaur Jr. We had made a joke that you would have to drink everytime J Mascis responded with a blunt one word answer. Not the case, he and the rest of the band were on point. I’m pretty sure there are multiple times where I freaked out and was like “This is the best thing ever!”

Someone recorded and posted the interview. Without a doubt between OFF! and the interview this was the best opening for a Dinosaur Jr show ever. Top it off with good friends, a good crowd, good beers, a good venue, a great setlist (Bug) and you get ..

Quite possibly my favorite concert ever. Words cant really describe how insanely awesome I thought this show was. They played In A Jar and The Wagon before starting Bug. Bug didn’t use to be my favorite, but I’ve always thought the 1-2-3 punch of They Always Come, Yeah We Know and Let It Ride was the best three song combo on any Dinosaur Jr album. It didn’t disappoint.

Instead of Lou screaming WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME? over and over during Don’t two dudes got on stage and screamed their lungs out. It was amazing. Carleigh took this awesome photo. They played Don’t for almost 15 minutes of pure destruction. After a short break came an encore. Lou announced, “Wouldn’t it be awesome is we played a shit load of Black Flag songs?” Then they went on to play Out There and The Lung. Ha ha J Mascis is one hilarious dude. Indeed one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and I haven’t stopped listening to Bug since.

We went up to the NCAR hill above Boulder to watch the fireworks. It’s so awesome you can see the displays from several different cities in the distance and have a great view of Boulder’s. Such a great time.

Boulder surrounded by balck.

Getting artsy with the phone camera.

It was 98 degrees when I left the house. Since I hadn’t skated the day before and all my friends were gone I was hyped for a solo session and brought 32 ounces of cold water to keep me alive. It turns out the sun went under a cloud right around then. Awesome! Although I could have brought Ollie. Oh well, I was in the mood for a solo session and it felt right. I had watched the new Transworld video two or three times throughout the day. I love that video. The soundtrack is so good too (except Beasley’s part for me). Anyways, I was hyped to skate and it wasn’t as hot as I had thought it would be. I started off horrible though. Great. I couldn’t even do a kickflip. I wanted to do a bunch of runs with a trick up the curb, then a trick on the bench. I managed an ollie up, front board jib first. Cool. Next was switch front 180 up, boardslide pop out. After that was halfcab up, front 50 which was good for me since I’ve haven’t 50’d a narrow bench like this in a long time. I tried b/s pop shove up followed by boardslide transfer for awhile, but could not get the transfer. Ugh. On the way there I thought the best I could do was treflip up the curb, then crooks on the ledge. I’ve only tre’d up a curb once before, but surprisingly it came relatively quick. I did that line once badly, then another time much better (not saying much). I ended up getting 4 treflips up the curb. Hyped on that. Even if they were slow. Coming the other way I wanted to do front shove up then front 5-0. The front shoves were going really well, but I couldn’t get the 5-0. I settled with another front 50. The other line I really wanted to do on the drive there was kickflip up, front board to fakie transfer. I came sooo close, but ended up giving up on that one. In between tries coming back I would try b/s flip up then fakie bigflip off the curb (almost) or manuals. I was getting pretty beat, but wanted to ollie something. I found a rock in the corner that had a weird approach. Perfect. I thought of a line to it and went to work. Fakie flip, horrible switch pushing, sw front 180 off the 2 stair, ollie the rock. It took a few tries and my switch pushing was so bad. I got the line with a sketchy ollie then had some speed going towards a curb and I posed kickflip front board and slid it, but fell. Awesome. I called it on that. Sometimes solo skating is the best. We went on to have a great family 4th of July dinner and fireworks.

Nate showed up at 11am and after some chatting we headed out to Boulder ditch to get warmed up. I was feeling better, but still not 100%. It was hot and muggy, the muggy part being rare for Colorado. Anyways, it was just Nate and I for awhile and since that spot is so hard to skate it took us awhile to land much of anything. We started mostly just doing the tiny qp and not landing a whole lot. Nate did get front pivot to fakie. We eventually ended up skating the ledge in the photo above. Nate did a bunch of tricks on it. The back 50 was gnarly, but then he even stepped it up to back smith! Bernie and Sam had joined us. Bernie did some really good front tails and front tail to fakie. I managed a boardslide and a little crooked grind which hyped me up.

Then we went to Crest View which is one of my favorite spots in Boulder now. I need to skate it more this summer while we can. Chad and Bonner met us. Nate was hyped on the spot and skated hard. He did like 100 boardslide transfers. One was even in a run followed by a nosegrind. Wow. Chad and Bonner were ripping. Bonner ollied one of the benches. Bernie and Sam played basketball for awhile. I started off having fun, but started to get worn out. I was still kinda sick ya know. I tired a little line for awhile with a kickflip up the curb then front board to fakie transfer, but never got it. Nate killed it. I’ll miss you dude, have fun back in Portland.

Oh yeah, around 8:30 Ollie and I went out skating. He’s been into it a bit again. We went out to a little nearby strip mall (behind Safeway) where there are some curbs and curb cuts and a metal grate loading dock. We had a blast. Ollie ripped it. He got a back 180 off of everything we skated. First it was this weird kicker. Then it was a curb cut. Then it was off a curb. He also did one of the sickest coffin rides I’ve ever seen. The metal grate spot was weird because you couldn’t just ride right up the bank, you had to ollie because there was a crack at the bottom. Ollie handled it though and did a first try rock fakie and worked up to rock ‘n roll. He also kinda wallied up it then did a back 180 off a curb. Trying to get his back I tried switch front 180 up the grate then b/s flip off, but didn’t get it. We goofed around for quite a while and it was a blast. We did some little grinds on a mini curb kicker. Ollie did front slash after a few tries then showed me up with a really long backside one. So awesome. He rules.

Felt like crap all day. Worked from home instead of going into the office. After work and a couple naps Nate and Derek met up as we were gonna go to Chris’ art show in the Fort. We decided to stop at Niwot High as it’s one of the best bench spots around now and Nate loves them benches. I basically skated like total crap and gave up after awhile and sat down. Derek ripped it. Fast back tails, nosegrinds, etc. Ripping. Nate had some warming up issue, but eventually started ripping like he normally does. Lots of long back 50s, front lip, nollie front tails, some good flippers, etc. So stoked Nate is in town, but wish I would have felt better.