Searching for Music at the X Games

I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to tell you that my last 18 years have involved watching the X Games religiously. I’m sure there are plenty of people that catch both the Summer and Winter Games (Events? Games? Games.) on ESPN and the ESPN family of networks. I’m just not that guy. About half of the time the X Games have existed, I didn’t even have cable, and I can say I noticed a definite drop-off of personal interest after I went to college. Blame the booze, blame the drugs, blame the all-boy Catholic high school for not preparing me to balance my personal life with the rest of my life. I’ll blame “being somewhat of an adult.” Regardless, my knowledge of the extreme sports competition in its post-Y2K form is about as up do date as knowing the characters from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and the hosts of Real World/Road Rules Challenges.

So, I don’t care about the X Games. I honestly don’t know anybody that does. The day before the event, I was literally asked by multiple people from Los Angeles music publications, “Where are the X Games?” It’s not like the Rose Bowl or even the U.S. Open of Surfing, where the tradition has become ingrained in culture. The whole idea of a sporting competition created by and run by a television network calls into question any reasonable merit that the championships might have, from a sporting standpoint at least. But, until riding a moped becomes an olympic event, ESPN is forced to basically maintain the sports that compete. I mean, if the skaters weren’t practicing all year, how would there be an X Games? I guess that explains why this is the sixth X Games this year, with the other five happening in various cities around the world.

My assignment was to cover the music of the X Games, which involved seeing a concert featuring The Presets, Tanlines, and Robert DeLong, but the X Games people sort of completely blew it and I couldn't actually get into the thing I was supposed to cover. So instead, I went around the X Games and tried to find music-related things. I ended up finding Razr scooters.

Now, I don’t think the razor scooter street course was an official event, but these young men sure made my six-year-old nephew look like an amateur.

He landed that one, too. You think I wouldn’t show a fall if he fell? Here is someone totally unrelated falling on a bike, just for the hell of it.

And I saw this guy who was acting out the message on his shirt.

He landed it, too. These BMX street runs are probably one of the more safe events that the X Games has. All around the event were reminders that extreme competition also comes with extreme consequences, from the tent designated for injured spectators to the prevalence of fans confined to wheelchairs, on crutches, or in casts. Certainly not all were injured by skateboards or motorcycles, but undoubtably that contingent was present. And I don’t know how you come back from that, to watch and cheer for the game that in so many cases has permanently taken away from its participant. Some would point to a passion that doesn’t leave because of something physical. But maybe to get to the high levels where so much of your body is put on the line, you are already so committed to the X Games lifestyle that there just aren't any other options you can invest yourself into.

Though my time spent at the X Games was pretty much a complete waste and I would have been better off doing most anything else, it was a new experience that I wouldn’t have normally had. I now know what it is like to be amongst the extreme sports journalist crowd, who watched events held in another location on a TV in the depths of the Staples Center. At one point, the BMX Big Air competition was halted when a rider brutally flopped his landing and laid motionless on the ground. The media room grew tense awaiting signs of life, which eventually did come. As the journalists and photographers reassured each other with stories from past X Games, it gave credence to that idea of passion, and illuminated how people whose lives were destroyed by this passion are also so unable to move past it.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little fun taking pictures of the men on their bicycles.

It just happened to be one of the prettier skies L.A. can offer.

And after a while, maybe I even stopped noticing the advertisements everywhere.

Like, literally everywhere.

And under that sky, with a night of hypothetically good music ahead, there was even something beautiful about the local teenagers loitering outside the event gates, preferring to take participate outside the world of the X Games rather than simply observe from inside it.

But, I wasn’t there to take pictures of local skaters or sunsets, I was there to write about music. At the X Games, the music played is pretty much exactly the music I had heard when watching the event as a kid. Pennywise blared on speakers from a radio-station sponsored DJ setup in the Nokia Plaza, and the fans haven’t veered far stylistically from the people who at the early X Games would cheer for live performances from Blink-182 and Good Charlotte.

I was curious as to whether the bill at Club Nokia in any way related to the X Games culture, as The Presets and Tanlines hover on the Rapture-established fault line between dance and indie, and don’t really feel like jams to demonstrate your best Christ Air or Benihana 360. But no matter. I will never know now, because someone fucked up and I couldn't get into the show. Whatever. I don't even like the fucking Presets.

Philip Cosores generally is a joy to work with. He tweets - @philip_cosores