“The best video I’ve ever seen.” For once we didn’t sit on the fence. The video in question has probably stood the test of time (but I’ll see if I can check that with the original reviewer).

Non-skaters might also be interested in the early work of Jason Lee, including London footage at Shell Centre etc. His opening comments always struck me as a wonderful comment on the state of the art in those days. These days, of course, we can share the thing itself instead of just writing about it:

COUCH SESSION

Blind’s new video has been a while coming, but it was certainly worth the wait. It’s one of those videos you just have to have. The skating’s so hot — and you get to see long runs of linked tricks, instead of just cutting to individual highlights, so the days of the one-trick wonders are numbered. There’s also some amazing stuff which was shot over here, which will give another particular boost to European skating. Over to Simon Evans, now, for the first reaction…

We live in strange times, times in which skate videos influence all skaters’ trickery and style. We live in video days. And Gonz’s company, Blind realise this. Video Days, the Blind way.
This video is basically the best video I’ve ever seen, featuring the exploits of tiny Guy Mariano, bio Jordan Richter, ragged old Mark Gonzales, smooth and clean Rudy Johnson and shaggy- side-burned Jason Lee — definitely the famous five.
Let me start at the beginning: the Blind Boys are first seen kicking back in a big old blue Cadillac, cruising around. First-up is little Guy Mariano. He’s so rad: he links all his tricks together, one after another, after another, ripping to the Jackson Five doing the raddest nose-blunt slides on curbs, frontside 360° Ollie shove-it over a bin and fakie to lipslide handrails. He really rips.
Jordan Richter shreds vert really well, doing manual roll 180° in, big nollie fakies and more. Then it’s the turn of the Gonz, skating round London — the Shell Centre and Jubilee Gardens — and Rollersnakes in Nottingham. Mark Gonzales is just so amazing: this is the first time I’ve really seen Gonz skate on video and I’m totally impressed. You keep saying to yourself “Did he do that switch-stance?” and “What did he just do then?” “How did he do that?” I now know why Rob Dukes rates him so much. I also like the clips from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oh yeah: I didn’t tell you what Gonz did, on purpose — it’s a surprise.
Hardly had enough time to get over Gonz’ bit when along came Rudy Johnson, scooting to Dinosaur Jnr. Rudy Johnson has a real smooth, fast style, linking all his trickery, doing 360° Ollie-flip melanchollies, the raddest frontside 360° Ollies, frontside blunt-slide, chink-chink grinds…
Then it’s Mr Jason Lee complete with big old sideburns. He’s a real clean skater, another one who links trick after trick after trick, pulling really amazing manual roll and nose-wheelie tricks, frontside Ollie shove-it to manual roll, and there’s more… Jason Lee is so rad, and so is the song he sings at the end.
Unfortunately the Blind team are involved in a car crash at the end of the video, so, alas, they are no more. All of them are dead. Baseball caps off, please. Shame really: they were a damn good team, with a damn good video. Alas, for these are video days.