After work Ollie and I went over to Creekside for a little bit before my brother was to arrive. We went to the side again with the weird stairs and such. I was achy and tried without ibuprofen again. I was rewarded by hitting a rock right away and slamming into a rail. Lovely. Ollie ripped. Lots of clean ollies up the curb, fakie shove off the curb cut, fs halfcab off, he ollied off the two stair to manny twice which was nuts. I kinda sucked it up, but had two lines that made it worth it. Kickflip into the four stair narrow handicap ramp, front 180 up the two stair then fakie flip on flat. The other line was heelflip on flat, ollie off the two stair, quick turn then ollie up the little loading dock, down that then a treflip on flat. This spot is so hard to skate that landing anything is rewarding. I wish I hadn’t felt so achy and sore though.

This is just silly. I saw Dinosaur Jr for free then attempted to go skating after at one of my favorite spots with some of my favorite people. I showed up first and was feeling kinda weird and in disbelief of what was happening. My ears were ringing and I was totally sober. Weird. I rolled around a little feeling kinda clumsy before Fuzz showed up. We both rolled around getting slightly less clumsy when Dave, Neil and Rob showed up. Shit got heavy quick. Ha. Neil pulled out a trash can to ollie over and was of course hopping over it immediately. We skated for several hours and a lot went down. Neil was hyped on everyone’s skating and was vocally stoked on the crew and how we’re still doing it. It was rad. I will never be able to remember all that went down so I’ll just go with some of the many highlights. Neil had some long lipslides on the waxed curb, one foot mannies, one foot over the trash can, front 180, halfcab, no comply over the trash can. Nose mannies, etc. He also had the highlight of the evening. When going for back 180 over the trash can he hit a rock and dove into it. It was a rubber trash can so no damage was done and he just lied there in fetal position snuggled into the trash can laughing. We all laughed hysterically. So epic. He also had some nice front shoves up curbs and kickflips off. Fuzz was the second over the trash can and front 180 and back 180’d it easy. Lots of crazy curb tricks. Back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie nosegrind 180 out, so much more I cannot remember right now. Rob had a bunch of nose mannies to lipslide, his patented slappy/ollie back 50, wallrides, b/s no comply wallrides, slappy lipslides, kickflipped off curbs like it was nothing. He also managed to get over the trash can. I had just landed a fakie big flip off a curb, saw Rob ollie the trash can and went for the ollie too, but didn’t have it. I was really sore and trying to skate without ibuprofen for the first time in awhile. I still skated decent though. Had a line of kickflip up curb, b/s flip off, halfcab flip on flat then super close to manual front shove out. Ever since I’ve been standing on a balance board at work manuals seem easier. Maybe I’ll actually land something out of a manual for once. Not this time though. I tried to get on some front slappies for awhile and failed. Oh, I was on a new board. An Atlas Nulled 8.1. Neat. Fullertron killed slappy crooks, boardslide 270s, front 5-0 to switch crooks, lipslide (above sorry for the lack of effort on the photo). He was super determined to ollie the trash can and at the end of the night kind of did it. It was more of a ride over it, but whatever, totally an over-45 make. Fun times, rad crew, Dinosaur Jr!

I had originally planned on skipping this show. Mainly because Dinosaur Jr was only the opening act and I did not care for the headliner in any way (Phoenix). Plus tickets were nearly $60. So I manned up and begged for a spot on the guestlist. It didn’t seem like it was gonna work as I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. But low and behold, one day before the concert I get an email that I’m on the list. Whewoo!!! So I skipped Sebadoh at the Larimer (still regretting that one a little) and then found out that since the forecast had called for rain the concert had been moved to the 1st Bank Event Center in Broomfield. Say what? Turns out it NEVER RAINED too. Oh well. The Broomfield Event center actually ended up being pretty cool and the sound was surprisingly good. This may have something to do with Dinosaur Jr not being able to play as loud as they wanted to. There were more old people in the crowd rockin’ Dinosaur Jr shirts then I would have thought, but the young crowd was definitely mostly there to see Phoenix. Dinosaur opened with one of my favorites, Thumb. At that point I already knew it was worth the price of admission. Ha ha, it was free! Free free free! They went on to play their typical greatest hits set:

Thumb
Budge
Watch The Corners
Rude
Out There
Feel the Pain
The Wagon
Freakscene
Just Like Heaven
a Deep Wound song

As expected the set seemed ridiculously short for them. My favorite song was Watch The Corners. It went off huge. That song hangs with their best. I’m not sure why Murph wasn’t there either, but whoever filled in on drums did a great job. It seemed like for the most part the Phoenix fans were into DJR, but I did hear one “This is the worst band I have ever heard”. Ha. I left immediately after Dinosaur Jr. Well, immediately after buying a new Dinosaur Jr shirt for my collection that is! Then I went skating with old guy friends and had a blast. This was my first sober Dinosaur Jr show since like 1998. Wow.