A few days ago I received an envelope tightly wrapped in red Deluxe Distribution tape and the sight of it nearly made my eyes pop out of my head. This was it… this is what I’d been waiting for… it was finally here. After nearly 2 weeks of monitoring Slap’s Real “Since Day One” thread I finally had a copy of Since Day One to call my own(thanks Tim!) and immediately dropped what we were doing to accommodate a viewing.

The video starts with and is dedication to Johnny Romano who passed away in late ‘08 but still very much lives on in the hearts and minds of skateboarders everywhere. Please visit this page to learn more on the inspiring life of Johnny Romano and to help support the fight against cancer.

Once the intro started rolling, I was taken aback by the clarity in which skate videos are made with these days. Thankfully the days of Hi-8 footage with vignetting in the corners are long gone and have been replaced with crystal clear digital HD footage. God bless the inventor of HD cameras.

The video kicks off with James Hardy’s first video part for Real and dude’s introduction came with a major fucking bang! He handled business with a part chalked full of tricks that could easily have been other peoples enders. And once his enders came in the form of a nollie 360 flip over the Roosevelt rail to bank and a f/s 180 to switch 50-50 the hard way at Clipper I couldn’t control the words “Holy crap” from escaping my lips. After this part, I’m definitely backing Hardy’s newly acquired pro status.

And Hardy wasn’t the only new kid on the Real video block, the video has a ton of new faces who live up to the Real team rider standards we’ve come to expect over the last 20 years. A few of the more heavy hitting newcomers were Massimo Cavedoni who made me pick my jaw off the floor after a f/s 180 to fakie 5-0 at Hubba Hideout, Davis Torgerson, Jake Donnelly and Alex Perelson who covers a vert ramp like he’s on a snowboard. But the biggest standout next to Hardy for me was Ishod Wair who delivered one of those parts that you can’t help but watch again and again.

The “boy did I underestimate this guy” awards went to Ernie Torres and J.T. Aultz. These two guys fucking killed it! I’d seen both skate in person before and was moderately impressed, but both really knocked it out of the park this time. They both skated some really big shit, especially for Ernie at his pint sized stature. But it wasn’t all big shit, Ernie’s perfectly executed feeble to b/s nose blunt on a flat bar was probably one of my favorite tricks from his part.

The usual suspects also killed it with Peter Ramondetta being his hellbent self, manhandling everything in his path. Keith Hufnagel came through with a full part which is something I’d been hoping for for years, and he even skated to a cover of my favorite Blondie song. Perfect! Man, I could watch Huf snap ollies all day long and was pleasantly surprised to see he still takes time from his busy schedule to put four wheels down and hit the streets. Justin Brock held it down for the Dirty South which has been breeding some serious all terrain killers lately. Justin’s part had that perfect blend of transition, rails, stairs & ledges and was hands down my second favorite part next to Dennis.

Which brings us to the curtain call that was a new Dennis Busenitz part. After Dennis’ amazing Diagonal part in ‘09 I honestly wondered who much footage he’d really have and tried not to build things up too much in my head which was hard. There were the Slap rumors of a 3 song part which I tried to ignore, but at the same time hoped to be true. In reality was his part 3 songs long… no. Did it live up to the hype that the Slap pals had created… almost. Was it my favorite part of the video… hell yes! We all know how fast Dennis skates and that’s what’s always drawn me to him, as I have a similar philosophy(but nowhere near his scale) that tricks done fast just feel and look better. But it was Dennis’ longer lines showing his consistency and the way that he pops out of tricks that are the other two thirds of the equation and often go unnoticed. Bottom line, Dennis killed it and if he isn’t rewarded with a Skater of the Year trophy next year as a result of this part I’ll be screaming for a recount.

The video is a bit long at 71 minutes but actually needed to be that long, and the music was perfect for having the trifecta of Too Short, Public Enemy & Boyz N Da Hood. A couple things I was bummed on were a lack of Damian Bravo footage and the fact that Nick Dompierre and Ernie Torres shared a part, as I was really expecting a full Dompierre part, especially with the rampage he’s been on over the last couple years. But all in all the video is extremely solid and should be a part of every skate rats video collection. I’d suggest purchasing the Collectors Edition version which comes with a 100 page photo book by Gabe Morford(samples shown above). The photos offer a great behind the scenes look at the video, and at this point Gabe is as much a part of the fabric of Real as anyone and his contribution should be celebrated accordingly.

Featured Since Day One riders include Dennis Busenitz, Peter Ramondetta, J.T. Aultz, Justin Brock, Chima Ferguson, Keith Hufnagel, Max Schaaf, Ernie Torres, Nick Dompierre, James Hardy, Jake Donnelly, Davis Torgerson, Alex Perelson, Ishod Wair, Robbie Brockel, Massimo Cavedoni, Kyle Walker and Antoine Asselin, plus special appearances by Johnny Romano and Jim Thiebaud.