The water was black, cold, and crowded with bodies when Jakob Nowell felt his leg extend just a little too straight.
Just moments earlier, fresh off his set with Sublime’s at Bayfest in San Diego last October, Jakob had done what he always does: skipped the backstage victory lap and headed straight for the fans. This time, instead of disappearing into the crowd, he vaulted off the stage and into San Diego Bay, laughing as hundreds followed him into the dark water. Somewhere beneath the surface, Jakob stepped into a hidden hole. He felt knee hyperextend with a sickening jolt — the kind of pain your body recognizes before your brain does.
“Jakob and I joke about jumping into the ocean at every Sublime show — even the land-locked ones,” says guitarist Zane Vandevort. This time, everything lined up: a Southern California hometown crowd, friends all over the bill, and the bay sitting right next to GA. Jakob checked in before the set. Zane was in. Jakob didn’t quite believe him — joking that Zane is the “King of Roaches” — but after the final song, Zane followed him straight through the crowd toward the water.
“Jake didn’t think I was coming so he just took off,” Zane recalls. “I missed the moment he jumped, but if he hadn’t told me his leg was messed up, I’d have no fucking idea. He jumped, splashed around, yelled war cries with the fans, and probably took 100 photos walking back to the stage — on his own two legs.”
Jakob climbed out of the bay soaked, adrenaline-spiked, and still fully in host mode. He posed for photos, cracked jokes, and acted like nothing had happened. With no spare clothes and still wet and sandy, the night wasn’t over. The crew headed straight to an afterparty at The Harp in Ocean Beach — a bar run by their uncle Miles of Slightly Stoopid.
Zane says Jakob iced his swollen leg, then proceeded to deliver one of the most high-energy Jakob’s Castle shows he’d ever seen. Two back-to-back sets. Hours of fan interaction. Almost no rest. All on a knee that would soon be diagnosed via MRI as a subarticular fracture — an injury that would sideline most artists immediately.
Doctors told him to stop. Friends told him fans would understand.
Two weeks later, the SVN/BVRNT Records BVRNT/TOUR West Coast run kicked off with Jakob’s Castle, Strawberry Fuzz, and Strange Case. Despite being ordered to stay off his leg, Jakob crossed the Southwest on crutches, delivering electric club sets night after night. He never complained. He never showed pain. He gave the fans everything.
Less than a week after that tour wrapped, Jakob stepped back into Sublime — this time onto giant, elbow-to-elbow theater stages. To make it work, the tour manager rented a Rascal mobility scooter. Jakob turned it into part of the show.
Instead of sitting still, he tore around the stage, leaning into the absurdity — ripping past bandmates and spinning limitation into spectacle. “Honestly,” Zane jokes, “it might’ve been even more entertaining — like watching him fly around on a Rascal like a hungry Walmart shopper.”
Jakob’s connection to his audience has always been refreshingly unguarded. Whether fronting Jakob’s Castle or stepping into his father’s legacy with Sublime, he doesn’t vanish after the last chord or treat the crowd like a backdrop. He goes out into it — literally.
So when Sublime closed out their final three shows of 2025 — a short but symbolic run through Tulsa, Chicago, and Northern California — Jakob was still injured, still under doctor’s orders, and still unwilling to let that change the experience for anyone in the room.
Tulsa opened with “Date Rape” beneath the inflatable Lou Dog. Chicago followed at the Aragon Ballroom, where the crowd overtook the band entirely during “My Ruca.” The year closed in Lincoln, California at Thunder Valley Casino Resort — nearly 4,500 fans packed in as Sublime stretched the set to 25 songs and closed with “Santeria.”
With a new Sublime album slated for 2026, plus upcoming Red Rocks shows and a highly anticipated Australian run, these nights felt less like an ending and more like a checkpoint. Sublime closed 2025 not with nostalgia or restraint — but with momentum.