2008 Woodie Awards
Upstart 'Riot' project succeeds
Jason Schueppert
Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: Intermission
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The Riot was hosted by Molitors Trout Heaven, a place normally known for its spooky haunted hayrides and the festive haunted house full of scare-masters every October.
A farm isn't the first place a person would expect to find a skate exhibition, video premiere or live music, but the open spaces ended up with people spread out in every nook and cranny.
Among the attractions were a mini-golf course loaded with kids, a basketball court filled with teens shooting hoops and rolling around on their skateboards.
A section for an intense game of horseshoes, a playground out in front by the entrance, complete with a jungle-gym, roofed outdoor emporium loaded with seats and even a petting zoo with two, count 'em two, goats tucked away by the forest.
It seemed less a concert than an afternoon in the park with an interesting soundtrack and a variety of readymade adventures.
There was an eclectic mix of live music throughout the day and night, keeping heads bobbing.
It was all centered around the skate fans, who were constantly zipping in front of the stage and popping ollies while the music lit the area up.
The skaters made the day an interesting hybrid of music and performance art. St. Cloud rock/punk foursome Sick Machine tore up the stage with a rapt crowd of teens and their tolerant parents looking on.
Hip-hop oriented DJs and emcees Postures, Liquid and Bunk1 provided the beats and rhymes throughout the sunny day, covering the hip-hop enthusiasts' needs.
Minneapolis rockers with a pop edge, Sick of Sarah, rocked the dinner hour, and thrashing punkers children 18:3 played the night show.
"I like the energy of the youth movement here. It's St. Cloud, an extremely conservative city," said Samuel Puterbaugh, 23, an SCSU alumnus in attendance. "The kids need something to do with the removal of the Java Joint and the downtown scene with all the current construction."
With few all-ages-venues around the area, and few events that appeal to both kids and adults, Granite City Entertainment set out to offer something cool and fun.
With local hip businesses such as the Electric Fetus, Wing-nut Tattoo and the Youth Shelter Supply at the event to sell merchandise, and the premiers of exhibition videos from E-gal, Face First and Capita snowboards, it was more of an event, than a concert.
"We wanted to either do it this year or next. We didn't want to get in over our heads; these events take a lot of work, but we just decided to do it," said Shawn Kroll of Granite City Entertainment (and also a member of hip-hop group Gigantic Mechanix). "We started planning (the event) in late July."
"The outcome was great. The people that bought tickets are walking out of here with twice that," said Kroll about the massive amounts of free swag (from T-shirts to snowboards) being given away.
Granite City Entertainment is hoping to make it a yearly festival and plans to make it a bigger event every year with hopes of getting some higher profile hip-hop acts and even some pro skaters to swing by.
There's even talk of some kids starting up an amateur skate team in St. Cloud.
The future of skating in St. Cloud hovered over the event, with there being a kiosk focused on the plans to build a St. Cloud Skate Plaza over the next few years.
A skate park is something St. Cloud has failed to provide the city for more than a decade, but through persistence and hard work, it's looking to be coming closer to a reality.
"We have to raise the initial $250,000, but after that, the city will include it in the budgeting plan for 2008," said Jeff Lee, father of skateboarder Austin Lee, who's also the brainchild behind the skate park.
Local businesses have been fairly charitable with the project. The St. Cloud Morning Optimists club has offered to match dollar for dollar whatever Lee and his crew can raise, up to $50,000.
They've also had a number of successful fundraisers over the last year or so and hope the park can be open by fall 2008.
The Granite City Riot is one of hopefully many all-ages-events primed for St. Cloud.
With the Java Joint gone from downtown, Cheap Thrills hovering under the radar and teens having nothing but free time, it's extremely commendable someone out there is putting on events kids actually want to go to, instead of what their parents would like them to attend.