SLP’s ‘KARI’
Every time I see a new SLP production I get hit by this crushing feeling that I’m blowing it, that I desperately need to get myself back to Helsinki one day. The fact that this particular vid features several minutes of Jonne Nordlund gracefully falling through the sky to Alicia Keys isn’t helping either… One of my fondest memories of the city is the time HELride‘s organisers randomly got all the skaters from the contest into an edition of Flow Festival that she was headlining. Watching Kendrick Lamar perform that ‘Drank’ song whilst being dead sober (drinks were stupidly expensive) may sound a bit weird, but at that point in time, surrounded by all these people I’d just met: it was banging. Same goes for the following year when minutes after stepping on my board at the DIY I lost my passport, bank card, phone, keys, etc. – on paper that does not sound like a good experience but thanks to every skateboarder I’d come across going out of their way to sponsor my fun (beers, parties, guided tours, you name it…) it turned it into one of the best weekends of my life.
What does all this have to do with Tobbe, Eniz and the gang’s new video? Nothing really. It’s just a long winded way of saying ‘go to Helsinki’. No matter what happens you won’t regret it. There’s very few skate scenes that radiate that kind of energy, and I’m convinced that it’s the reason it’s remained one of the most productive (the most productive?) in Europe for all these years.
