team, Emerica Skate

Posted: June 21, 2009

Underworld Signing + Leeside Session Report

Skip To The Rants (7)

The Emerica team—Andrew Reynolds, Heath Kirchart, Ed Templeton, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Bryan Herman, Leo Romero, Jerry Hsu, Brandon Westgate and Jamie Tancowny--rolled into Underworld in Vancouver a little after 2:00 p.m. A long line of kids that snaked halfway down the block was already waiting out front. The line stayed that long for a good two hours. At least a couple of hundred kids eventually found their way through the door, which made this the largest signing ever at Underworld.

Heath got pissed at Ed for holding up the line. Seems that Ed was inspired to produce an artistic masterpiece on every kid’s poster, t-shirt, etc. Hell, one guy even asked Ed to draw the Transistor Sect on his body, then promptly went out and got it permanently tattooed! Ed then put the finishing touches on an Emerica bench that had just been signed by the whole team--the perfect ending to a killer signing. Thanks to everyone at Underworld for having us.

Next, we headed over to LeeSide, a homegrown skatepark under a bridge, similar to Burnside, FDR, Washington Street, etc. The Emerica team took a little while to warm up to the rough trannies and burly concrete coping, then the dust, skateboards and bodies really began to fly. Spanky stuck a huge air to fakie over a tranny to wall. (There was a small ledge in between the tranny and the wall.)

Westgate terrorized the place with a backside ollie from a tranny to a huge vert wall. Jerry amazed with a front blunt on super small, tight tranny with a foot of vert. The Boss pretty much ruled the session with a fat frontside flip over a hip, a tall ollie over a chest-high volcano and an extra large kickflip fakie way up on a massive tranny wall. As the session drew to a close, everyone made their way to dinner, then back to the hotel to get ready for a big gig with No Age and The Goat.