You’ve most likely seen Opera’s excursion to Barcelona featuring the somewhat unlikely, yet most entertaining, line up of Nassim Lachhab, Kieran Woolley, and Sora Shirai (who isn’t easy to background check, sharing a first name with an AI Engine while riding for a brand named the same as a popular internet browser will leave you on page two results at best.) From what we’ve gathered, the guys got along splendidly, destroyed everything the local filmer and photographer fired at them, and probably share a good amount of inside jokes by now. Let me tell you, listening to the inside scoop delivered through an armada of Kieran-voicenotes, sounding like a skate version of “Ozzyman Reviews”, was an absolute pleasure – so we’ll just pass them right on!
Hey, mate. Sorry for the lag. Let's get this done, hey? How was the trip you were asking? The trip was next level, to say the least. Skating with Nassim and Sora – they were just pushing me at every spot, sending me down shit I had no business trying or just firing the boys up. It was a really good time. Going to do this in a bunch of different ones, sorry.
Nassim Lachhab – Varial Heel
This trip was my first time to Barcelona. Nassim picked me up from the airport and I jumped in. His crazy Moroccan driving was next level. He took us straight to Macba and I was tripping there. I'd never seen so many skaters in one place. I thought there was a contest on or something. It was the sickest vibe ever. Everybody pushing each other, skating, having a good time, drinking, smoking. I fell in love instantly. And then the rest of the trip was just full throttle ahead. Blai was taking us to crazy spots, and all the boys were killing it, that's for damn sure.
Kieran Woolley – Fs Feeble
Watching Nassim and Sora work and how these two go about tricks was pretty mind blowing. And I learned so much from them. Blai [Costa] and Gerard [Riera] were so sick to have on the session. They knew all the outskirts of Barci, what was rad to explore. It was pretty cool getting to see not just the city, and skate a bunch of spots that maybe have never even been skated before.
Nassim cleaning up the dirt
Nassim's the man. Been on a couple trips with him now, and every time I skate with him, it gets me so fired up. We were all smoked, so it was pretty cool watching him. How he selected his spots and trick selection. I was tripping how quickly he did half of those flip tricks. Nollieflip, third try down like a five block or something stupid like that. Blokes bloody cooked.
Nassim Lachhab – Switch Heelflip
Nassim's the man. Been on a couple trips with him now, and every time I skate with him, it gets me so fired up. We were all smoked, so it was pretty cool watching him. How he selected his spots and trick selection. I was tripping how quickly he did half of those flip tricks. Nollieflip, third try down like a five block or something stupid like that. Blokes bloody cooked.
Sora Shirai – Halfcab Tailslide Bigspin out
So obviously I've been around Sora at contests, but I've never had the proper “SORA” experience. And he’s hilarious, to say the least. The blokes cracking jokes in shitty English 24/7. And I could not stop laughing the whole time in the van. He's unreal. And watching him skate is mental. I've never seen anything like it. Cab back tail, like a 9 or 10 stair. Doesn't say a word. Rolls up and just bigspins out, like, first fucking try, like it's nothing. Proper madman. Gerard and Blai's face after that was cracker.
Kieran Woolley – Frontside Smithgrind
How I ended up on Opera? I was skating with Jack Fardel a bunch and Trey Wood, Clay Kreiner, all the madness homies. And when Dwindle went to shit and Bill had the idea of starting up Opera, he approached me and I was down to skate with all my mates and get to travel. And yeah, it's been a rad experience so far. I can't wait for more trips and more videos and keep pushing it with the lads.
The day I hit my head? That was a sick day. We went a couple hours outside of Barci and we were skating this tech rail. I was pretty smoked from the trip already and was enjoying the show watching Nassim and Sora try some shit that makes no sense. Long story short, we heard of this roll on grind down the street and I was itching to get something and got up there, looked good, thought it was a great idea and fucking cooked me. Oh God. Watching the boys skate that tech rail and destroying it, it got me so fired up. I was like, let's go check it right now. Got up there, started dropping, grinding it a couple times. I was like, all right, first try, let's do it. And I'm not too sure what happened, but I landed on my head at flat, kinda. That was pretty fun. I pulled up. Relatively sweet, considering that slam. I had a little gash in the side of my head that was pissing blood for a bit. We cleaned that up and chucked some ice on the egg and she was good to go. I took a couple days off after that, though. I was a little rattled.
By the end of the trip, our bodies were so smoked and we really had – Well, I didn't really have any clue what we were filming for. I just knew we were out there and just skate and have fun and that's what we were doing and the boys ended up coming through and put together a pretty sick edit, I reckon.
