How Texas and Metal Music Created the Monster Jam Revolution
You can't think of monster trucks without thinking of rock & metal music. And who hasn't thought of driving a huge monster truck on the road while blasting out some heavy tunes? Hence the term... Monster Jam. But that wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas & the band Jackyl.
San Antonio was the birthplace for Monster Jam & here's the story
In February of 1994, Pace Motorsports was the company that ran the biggest monster truck shows around the United States. When they came to San Antonio, you had huge monster stars like Bigfoot & Grave Digger to draw in the crowd.
But that wasn't enough...Pace Motorsports wanted to do something big...something memorable. Enter Kevin Vargas & Virgil Thompson, both who worked for 99.5 KISS FM in San Antonio, the men responsible for putting together the concert that would be known as the FIRST ever concert held at a monster truck show. The show would be called: "Monster Truck Jam".
So who was the first band to play a Monster Jam show?
According to Kevin, they were asked by Pace on who would be the perfect choice for playing a high energy rock concert at the show. Kevin knew exactly who to ask: Jesse James Dupree & the band Jackyl.
During the show, they would pull away some of the cars, bring out a stage & the band would play one of their biggest songs to date...the only song with a chainsaw solo: The Lumberjack.
Decades later, people still acknowledge that San Antonio show as the birthplace of Monster Jam
In 2014, My San Antonio did a write up talking about the huge explosive show that happened back in 1994. They acknowledge just how important that first MONSTER JAM show was. Nearly 30 years later, it's still regarded as THE top monster truck organization with shows bringing in loads of monster maniacs to enjoy the high flying, car crunching action that happens all across the world.
And we owe it all to Virgil, Kevin, Jackyl, the city of San Antonio & of course all the fans that made sure that event was one to remember.
