By Jim Stanford on March 30, 2009
Springtime in Wyoming. Photo by David Stubbs.
In Wyoming, a wet, driving snowstorm not only fails to dampen the mood of a music festival but actually enhances it.
At Saturday’s Jackson Hole Mountain Fest, the spirits seemed to rise the more the big, fat flakes rained down from the sky. Performances by the Jay Nash Band and Ozomatli came off without a hitch, even if the musicians found the scene a bit strange.
“We’ve never played a show like this,” a member of the Los Angeles-based Ozomatli declared. “It’s snowing, and everyone’s drinking Pabst!”
Chali 2na leads Ozomatli in a festive snowstorm at Teton Village.
The evening festival ushered in a massive powder day Sunday at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and capped a week that saw more than four feet of snow fall in the Tetons.
What began as flurries when Nash took the stage grew in intensity as the trio rocked through numbers from its latest album, The Things You Think You Need. Nash, a former Jackson Hole resident and avid skier, would recount in the gondola line the next morning that the storm took on a magical quality, well aware that in a ski town snow tops the list of essentials.
Led by rapper Chali 2na, Ozomatli laid down hip-hop, funk and samba grooves as the crowd swelled to perhaps 2,000. Armed with 16- and 24-ounce cans of PBR, fans in wool caps and soggy down coats danced to keep warm and, as the night wore on, blithered in the blizzard.
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• Nice shot of the scene at night by Tristan Greszko
• Video clip by Keith Cozzens
Posted under Music, Ski Resorts
Nice! So…any tapers there?