Tony Hawk has joined Goldfinger to perform ‘Superman’ at When We Were Young Festival – check out the footage below.
- READ MORE: How do you bring the ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ soundtrack into 2020? We asked the man who did
‘Superman’ is one of the many tracks that appeared on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack. ‘Superman’ first appeared on the tracklist of Goldfinger’s 1997 album ‘Hang-Ups’, but was popularised following its inclusion in the soundtrack for the seminal skateboarding video game two years later.
Led by frontman John Feldmann (aka Feldy), Hawk himself appeared with the LA band to perform the song. Hawk appeared at When We Were Young to host his skateboarding ramp, and thanked the festival for trusting him before addressing Goldfinger on stage: “I especially wanna thank Feldy and Goldfinger for writing the song that became the unquestionable theme to our video game soundtrack,” Hawk said. Watch the footage below:
This year’s edition of When We Were Young also saw Avril Lavigne and All Time Low teaming up to perform Lavigne’s hit ‘Sk8er Boi’. Lavigne and All Time Low had previously collaborated together at the festival in 2022, where they took to the stage to sing Blink-182‘s ‘All The Small Things’.
This is not the first time the skateboarder has covered ‘Superman’. Earlier this January, he joined Goldfinger in Anaheim, California to sing the song, which he said was an “honour”. He also joined Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater cover band, The 900, to cover ‘Superman’ in August last year. The band called it “easily one of the best moments of our lives.” Hawk also joined Trent Reznor to cover Nine Inch Nails‘ ‘Wish’ earlier this May.
Pro Skater audio lead Justin Joyner was interviewed by NME in 2020, where he expanded upon the selection process for the soundtracks: “Tony Hawk… is kind of a fast-paced game in a lot of ways – you’re constantly moving around and doing tricks. You have to have music that has the right kind of rhythm to it, and the right kind of sound to really complement that gameplay.”
He continued: “The song also has to be catchy in one way or another,” pondering the particular quality that all perfect Tony Hawk picks share. “I use the word ‘sticky’. When I was going through picking these songs, I would listen to them over and over and over again. I got rid of the ones I felt were grating in one way or another.
“Internally the people who developed this game were listening to these songs day-in, day-out during the course of development, too. People would reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, I love this song or that song. That was really encouraging to me because people would reinforce that for the most part people are really enjoying it.”
The post Watch Tony Hawk sing ‘Superman’ with Goldfinger at When We Were Young appeared first on NME.
