This year we opted to make Nashville our last stop on the BBQ tour. This would allow us to save the biggest event for last and really blow it out. For this year’s event, everything was bigger and better than last year. Our local media push was great and having the extra media day on Friday made each of our events very media friendly. We had live remotes from the Fox and NBC stations, as well as features on CBS and ABC. We did very well with the print media with features in the Tennessean almost daily leading up to the event. We also had a great picture of Shaun White on the front page of the Sunday Edition of the Tennessean. Radio media ran very deep with live in-studio interviews with P.O.D. and the Rockstar Energy / Metal Mulisha riders before the event kicked off.

The weather forecast for Nashville was H-O-T and it looked like the day was going top 100 degrees. While the weather was hot, the action was even hotter. Adio was scheduled to bring out some serious talent to Nashville and they delivered. X-Games and Olympic Gold Medalist Shaun White was there to rip up the vert ramp along with Paul Zitzer, Zach Miller and guest Rob Lorifice. Adio brought the magic with Kenny Anderson, Steve Nesser and mini shredder Curren Caples, who is only 11 years old. Bam Margera was expected to show to round out an amazing line up. Unfortunately, just days before the BBQ, Bam slammed really hard while riding in Louisville and lacerated his liver…ouch! We had a killer line up anyway and all of the fans were pumped to see some serious skate and moto.

The day started with the Adio Team riding the super mini ramp with reckless abandon. Shaun White rode his same amazing self and made all the girls scream with his flowing locks and smooth style. Kenny Anderson and Steve Nesser got a little crazy and tried to scrape all of the fresh paint off of the coping. Fine grinds all around. The highlight of the day had to be young gun Curren Caples, who stole the show by ripping some serious style and showing the pro a thing or two about rocking the mini ramp. This kid is the future of skateboarding. Caples then packed up his show and rolled over to the vert ramp to session it with no knee pads. Incredible.

The vert session was amazing and Shaun White showed why he is the most well known action sports athlete my site. Huge airs and incredible sweet style defined Shaun White at this years Nashville stop. Paul Zitzer has been riding vert longer than Curren Caples has been alive, and he proved that he can still rip with the best of them. The athlete of the event had to be Zach Miller who has improved so much since we saw him last year. Zach ripped the ramp and then signed autographs for the hungry fans.

Nashville sure does love the smell of two-stroke oil in the morning, because the turnout for each of the FMX demos was bigger and more insane than last year. The Mulisha boys went off as Metal Mulisha legend, Brian Deegan looked on. Deegan was in the house and signing tons of autographs over at the Rockstar booth.

Local band Love Fire, which consisted of three 12 year old kids from Franklin, TN, completely won the crowd over and stole the win in the Converse Battle of the Bands. Opening act Moses Mayfield had a great set despite the mixing board overheating and losing sound. When all else fails, always break into an acoustic version of Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. Once the sound was restored, Moses Mayfield finished and opened the stage up for headline act P.O.D. who blew the doors off the Nashville stop with over 5,000 people rocking out in a mall parking lot for the show. The boys from P.O.D. participated in an autograph session earlier in the day and were amazing to work with. A great big thanks to them for a great performance.

As we found last year, the Nashville stop is very special and this year was no different. Everybody had a great time and this was the perfect place to end the 2007 Journeys Backyard BBQ.

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