I had no idea there was a cover band specialising in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtracks. I’m happy enough today knowing such a thing exists, but even happier knowing that they had a show on the weekend blow up because the man himself was there and joined them on stage for a couple of tracks.
The 900—named after a skating move that’s possible in both the game but also very rarely in real life—are a band from the UK who call themselves the nation’s “first and only Tony Hawk Pro Skater cover band”. Which means they only play songs from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtracks.
That’s a lot of material to cover! And while they don’t play the entire spectrum of musical genres available over the series—being a band they seem to only be covering rock/metal/punk stuff, and I can’t find any videos of them playing any of the series’ rap tracks—what’s there is still a fantastic sampling of one of the most important and beloved collections of video game music of all time. If the song has guitars in it and was on a THPS soundtrack, whether it was Rage Against the Machine, CKY, Refused or Fu Manchu, they’ll play it.
Anyway, so The 900 were playing a show in Haggerston, London over the weekend, and after belting out a few tracks were joined on-stage by…well, by Tony Hawk himself, who as he seems to be increasingly doing in his post-pro skating career is happily settling into a Bill Murray-esque lifestyle.
This is the first footage shared of the event, which blew up on Twitter over the weekend:
The band themselves had some more professional footage shot, though, and have begun sharing it as well:
It’s impossible not to love everything about this, from the looks on the faces of the band to the fact Hawk absolutely nails it, as though he’s spent his life dreaming of the chance to get up stage and belt out some tunes like this.
If you want to see more stuff from the band, they’ve got a whole set up on YouTube, but it’s only watchable on YouTube so you’ll have to head there to check it out.