REVIEW: NASS 2009
NASS (National Action Sports Show) is the country’s premier action packed extreme sports and music festival. It combines great music line ups with the best in action sports such as BMX, FMX, Skateboarding, In-lining and Mountain Biking. Sponsored by Relentless, it’s a spectacular event with always something great to look forward to. This year the main attraction was the Goliath Mini Mega Ramp – Europe’s biggest ramp which provided some extreme action.
The weekend long event opened on the Friday morning with the weather just about holding up, despite the predicted heavy rain that was looming over the festival. Each year the site is set up slightly differently and this year the public street course was greatly improved so that there were some nice spots for everyone to participate who wanted to. In front of the outdoor stadium they had a ramp set up for the FMX and close by were the dirt jumps. The pro street course was quite different from last year and the athletes seemed to like it and judging by the tricks that were being pulled off it was a great design layout. There was also an all-girl roller derby match which was new this year. The security this year was very strict which meant some queues at the beginning but that said, there seemed to be some thieving going on sadly mainly young kids losing their skateboards. Even one of the competitors, Route One skateboarder Amir Williams got his board nicked! All day Friday there was lots of practice going on with the athletes arriving steadily throughout the day. There was a great atmosphere building and the rain held off until late which meant that the music on the main stage had already drawn a huge crowd before it got too wet. By the nightfall, the indoor arena was seriously kicking off with Shy FX and Crissy Criss in particular getting huge response.
Saturday Day 2 and the weather was definitely not on side. In parts some of the outdoor events were affected, but that did not dent the atmosphere. Inside the main arena the competitions on the pro course went like clockwork with the in lining, street boarding, skateboarding and BMX all holding their qualifying events. There seemed to be lots of competitors, more so than last year, and the standards seemed even greater. The street boarders held their world championships at NASS this year. Despite the weather there was still quite a lot going on at different times and the Loaded magazine wet T shirt competition needless to say drew a fun crowd in the Exmoor bar. The retail village was heaving throughout the day as some great prizes being given away. There were instant scuffles taking place as Route One were doing their hourly product toss and giving away free skateboards and shoes. On the music front, it was amazing to see Zane Lowe getting the entire main stage area jumping in the pouring rain on the Saturday night leading to the killer performance by CKY. The draw of the Scratch Perverts made sure the indoor arena packed for the second night in a row. Propaganda club night took care of the Exmoor bar and the Secret Garden was busy until the early hours of the morning.
The Sunday was a much brighter day and therefore the Goliath ramp saw lots of action. The ramp consisted of an 8 metre roll in followed by a big jump box and a 14 foot quarter at the end. One the highlights of the BMX events was the tricks pulled off by a young boy Nicholi just 14 years old who stole the show. The amazing Scott Hamlin deservedly won the Goliath BMX event. Indoors on the pro course, the finals for all events took place throughout the day. One of the highlights of the street competition was watching skateboarder Jake Collins, only 15 years old, who got 11th place alongside Ben Raemers and Josh Young 1st and 2nd place. The day ended with BMX street finals which saw a huge crowd piled into the main arena loads of noise being made for the finalists pulling off some insane tricks. Late on Sunday afternoon the weather turned glorious, and it was a shame the festival was over so soon. A definite must see for anyone with a liking for any of the extreme sports, don’t miss it next year.
Review by DJ Jackie Brown
