Midland Magazine

The Ignition 07 Tour

No wonder Ignition Skateshop was voted retailer of the year in 2006 (together with Revolution Skateshop out of AZ). They do so much for the sport through contests, Jojo organizing the Winterclash, Weekend 2 Remember and many crazy tours. Like the one they did last year. They sent the whole Core team – Wagner, Gagi and Hyden along with Jacob Juul and Fredrik Andersson. As coach and tour manager Jojo was a must have. To document it all they got top photographer/video editor Alex Schneider.

Traveling through Sweden, Norway and to end up at Roskilde festival in Denmark. Everything is captured and edited in the best of manners. The DVD shows you everything (and a little bit more) about the hard life on tour. Sleeping on floors, driving around in a totally heavy packed mini van in the middle of the night while everyone BUT yourself is pissed as hell from drinking beer. But crazy life is just one of many things you will see in this DVD. Yup, I am talking about the great skating of course. The Ignition guys can skate and they can skate anything and anywhere. No wonder Jacob Juul took first place in Oslo. He’s just amazing. I saw him during their stop in Gothenburg and for the Gothenburg Real Street comp in August. He won that one to I must add.

Gabriel Hyden is also one of my favorite skaters. He has so much style in all his tricks. He is also a really cool dude! Same goes with the rest of the gang of course! Dominic Wagner is just so good, skates hard and fast all the time. Gagi was kinda quiet when they were here but then he saw this beast of a rail he killed it with a topsoul to bs savannah, shit crazy! Jojo was the organizer and he was on his cell phone 24/7, can’t be easy. But he did have time to do some mad gaps over here! Btw, Jacob and Hyden skated a kink rail next to my house! It was really nice to have them over here for a few days, hopefully they enjoyed sleeping on my floor in my small apartment. And if you ever come back I promise we will have better weather. Say no to rain!

The rest of the DVD is packed with top notch footage. Hyden did much work with his 35mm adapter which enhances the quality and that shows in the DVD. Also, multiple angels gives you an even better look at life on tour and sick tricks. They could have put more tricks in the film, I know some of the guys from Gothenburg destroyed them selfs on this massive rail which I can’t find anywhere in the DVD even though I know it was caught on tape. But well…better luck next time I guess.

The music in the DVD is really good, a nice mix that gives you that nice and mellow feeling which is (according to me) needed when watching a tour movie. The DVD ends with the special Roskilde Festival part – skating, mud, beer, more mud and live music. Does it get any better? If you have ever wondered what life is like on tour, see it dudes! It’s a must!

Ignition Tour DVD Teaser

Ignition DVD Vol.2

I think this is the first DVD I see that only features skaters all connected to just ONE skateshop. In this case it so happens to be the Ignition Skateshop out of southern Germany, really close to Austria (where it all started). Leo Donhauser has built this lifestyle, yeah it’s true, lifestyle with his own hands. From scratch. Here we are now, 8 years later and Ignition Skateshop is bigger and better than ever before. They now have their own skate park, bar, skateshop and one of the best skaters in Europe skating for them. If this isn’t enough all the guys who works in the shop can probably outskate any of you.
Featured in the DVD is of course the Core Team – Jojo Jacobi, Gagi, Gabriel Hyden and Dominic Wagner. Jacob Juul, Christian Obermaier, Philipp Preuss, Michi Huber and Sebastian Scholz all have sections.

Watching the film a couple of times I kinda know pretty fast which ones I like the most. Jacob Juul has a great section with a lot of tech skating. Haven’t really seen him do stuff like this before. Didn’t know he was so good at gapping stuff, but that fakie 720 blew me away. As for a lot of the other really creative tricks and switch ups. His best section so far!

Another skater that caught my eye was Hyden’s. He has a sort of unique style that I like so darn much. Tech shit mixed with a lot of new school type skating. He also combines good style skating with good clothing style. Be sure to see more from him in the future.

Dominic’s section differs in the way that it has been edited and filmed by one of my favorite videographers. Chris Koll. He was one of the masterminds behind the much beloved film Label Me!. Dominc’s section is packed with tricks and gaps documented in the best of ways. Multiple angles, best editing skills and that creative touch I seek in most inline skating films that hit the market. Back in the days it was just tricks tricks tricks. Chris Koll is just one of those who I believe has that eye for how it should look and he does it at it’s best in Dom’s section. Rock music is also a good choice for his section. Editing wise it’s probably one of the best sections I’ve seen.

Christian Obermaier is another skater that impressed me in this DVD. Haven’t heard or seen that much of him but has a couple of super nice tricks and lines in the DVD. Another thing I saw that was so fun to see was Christian’s constant smile on his face. You can see that he just loves to skate!

Also featured in a Mixed seciton are Leo (the man himself!), Fredrike Reiche and Jonathan von Kralik among others. They all skate really good and it’s fun to see a skateshop owner skate better than most skaters out there. Keep it up!

Skating wise this DVD is good but the editing, with Dom’s section as an exception, could have been better. It doesn’t really meet the ’standards’ of todays action sports films. There are no real hammer sections but as I mentioned the sections from Juul, Hyden and Dom are all really good.
I hope there will be an Ignition Skateshop DVD in 2008.