TikTok recently debuted a commercial where Tony Hawk is told by a doctor to stop skateboarding, so he uses the social media platform to search for “not so extreme sports.” The commercial doesn’t feature the famed skateboarder capturing a similar high by rocking out with Goldfinger, but it should have.
Over the weekend, Hawk joined Goldfinger on stage at House Of Blues Anaheim in California to perform “Superman,” Goldfinger’s high-energy track from their 1997 album Hang-Ups. It’s best known for its placement on the soundtrack of Hawk’s groundbreaking 1999 video game, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
@filmmakerkris As requested, the full video of @tonyhawk singing #Superman with #Goldfinger
Hawk’s surprise cameo served as a nostalgic time machine for fans:
just hit me that the early Tony Hawk game soundtracks were just full of songs that Tony liked lmfao https://t.co/UvSCyPInCd
— matthew ritchie (@mkrwrt) January 15, 2023
What do we have to do to get Tony Hawk to come sing a song with us @PFTCommenter https://t.co/VESwdhg3PH
— Robbie Fox (@RobbieBarstool) January 15, 2023
Dude, @tonyhawk suprised everyone and came out and sang Superman with Goldfinger last night and it was so rad. pic.twitter.com/CS2ySWjHlG
— Mike Steele (@VanSavesLives) January 15, 2023
Rock Sound responded by sharing an interview from last summer with Goldfinger’s John Feldmann, who was reacting to Hawk performing “Superman” with a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack cover band in London (as noted by Brooklyn Vegan at the time):
https://twitter.com/rocksound/status/1614940661630832641\
In September 2020, Hawk released the remastered Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. In the months leading up to that, Feldmann reflected on how the original video game impacted him and Goldfinger.
“I really didn’t know how much Tony Hawk helped our band with that song until we were on tour in England,” Feldmann told Loudwire in June 2020. “We were touring with Bloodhound Gang and supporting them as they had this huge hit at the time in Germany, so we played with them in England and all of a sudden when we played ‘Superman,’ everyone went ballistic. It was the biggest circle pit of the entire night.”
He continued, “There was no moment in Bloodhound Gang’s set or our set that surpassed what happened with that song. I was like, ‘What the f*ck is happening with this song?’ But I put two and two together and realized that Pro Skater had globally just become this huge hit of a video game.”
