- “It’s a ski resort. It’ll be cold,” I told myself whilst packing. I didn’t think within twenty minutes of arriving that I would be in the shoe store buying a pair of flip flops. Our lack of weather forecast googling had rendered most of my packing useless: the sweltering heat conditions were more akin to early evenings at Benicassim than the Austrian Alps. It was the first pleasant surprise of many at Snowbombing 2007, a ski n’ rave festival that has now firmly established itself on the map. It was an event full of colour, entertainment and…
Stepping off the coach, we were greeted by a gentleman who was hardly in a gentle state. With shirt MIA, jeans hung low and half his underwear sticking out, our Austrian welcoming party took his cap off to reveal a head half-shaved and half a mess of different lengths and shapes. “Do you know where I can find a hairdresser?” he asked desperately. “Can’t the person who did the first half finish the job?” This response merely confused the person further still. Welcome to Mayrhoffen. What have I gotten myself into?
Mayrhoffen is beautiful, set in the valley and surrounded by picturesque alps, the peaks of which were covered with a blanket of white snow, offering a sliver of hope for those, like us, who planned on spending daytime in the powder. The runs might have been limited due to the warm weather, but musically there was a wide range of options. Previous years DJ line-ups were pretty breaks indulgent, but this year, while the likes of Evil Nine and Tayo were in attendance, elsewhere there was everything from Justice to M.A.N.D.Y, from James Zabiela to Guilty Pleasures.
Like the line-up, the crowd was a diverse blend. The village swarmed with girls in bikinis and guys in shorts, Merseyside kids, Watergate regulars, regular music junkies as well as boarders and skiers for whom the parties were an added bonus. Nitsa’s troop strolled into the bar on Thursday afternoon, beanies still covered in snow, and sat next to Fabric kids. 2,500 people from all around Europe.
After spending the first afternoon kicking back, tunes blaring, working on my tan three months early, I headed to Arena, a generic venue that could be sold as a flat pack from IKEA to a town in need of a club space. What it lacked in the way of aesthetics, it made up for in atmosphere as the crowd swelled to catch the gritty electronic sounds of Mekon, whose music I would review for you, but unfortunately I’d had too many Jagermeisters to judge. I was in a better state on the second night, when I caught the distinct London sound of Dave Beer and Switch at the heaving Schlussel bar. They both delivered a variation of tough, sometimes evil, electro/tech house, so much so that if you closed your eyes you might even have thought you were at Fabric. But thankfully we were in up in the Alps, and the up-its-arse vibe often felt in London was happily replaced by an upbeat and up for it party atmosphere.
Depending on skiing/boarding ability, our group divided their time between the slopes and the cafes/bars throughout the day and the nights in the clubs. The skiers made cable car banter with Tayo and Krafty Kuts, whilst the boarders found Dave Beer and James Zabiela on their chair heading up Red 27. Artists mixed with punters throughout the week, and it only added to the experience.
On the whole, the event was run superbly. You can tell the Snowbombing crew put a lot of hard work into it, from working closely with the locals to making sure there were a variety of acts across the genres to keep everyone entertained. There was a good selection of venues, ranging from traditional Austrian bars, to a car park, to a decidedly cold igloo high up on the mountain, all of which were nicely sized and cosy, making the whole week seem very intimate. We felt very much part of what Snowbombing was.
The downside? Well, the bug in the system was the promoter's liberal attitude to pre-advertised line-ups. Jesse Rose’s ear infection can’t be helped, so his no show is understandable, but on numerous occasions we frequented bars/igloos expecting to hear certain artists only to be greeted with the sight of others in the booth/on stage.
There was an insanely good time to be had at the eighties-themed street party, which took place on the Friday afternoon/evening. Fuelled by the Red Bull cocktail stand in particular, it reminded me of some tragic, best-forgotten 21st birthday party, with some of the worst music from the eighties making a comeback as the DJs dusted off records which they probably had hoped they would never spin again. It was if Bestival had relocated to Austria for the day: Chewie from Star Wars, Batwoman, The cast of Fame, lost pirates and hundreds of other curiously dressed people (proof in the photos!) grimaced through an epic Tug Of War down the main strasse. Heck, I even saw my good half-bald mate, haircut finally complete, dressed in the same clothes as he was a few days prior. He was putting up a brave fight against the jaws of Jagermeister (a fight that many were constantly losing), and it’d only been half a week since I’d seen him, but at that point he looked like he may have been kicking on from Snowbombing ‘06. No doubt he’ll be back in 2008.
The musical highlight of the week was the final night back at the Schlussel bar. Evil Nine lived up to their name by delivering a sinister and angry two hours of breakbeat rock, while James Zabiela was his usual bubbly self, enjoying himself almost as much as the sweaty crowd with two hours of ‘lock the kids up its going to get nasty in here’ tech. You’d think from his recent One + One successes that JZ would have been the night’s peak, but then James Lavelle steamed down the final furlong.
Lavelle has never had a problem playing a record that excites the crowd, but more often than not his transitions and construction of the set let him down. Not on this occasion. If the temperature was the biggest shock of the week, this wasn’t far behind. Lavelle totally outshone both Zabiela and Evil Nine, spinning a stellar two hours of breakbeat and driving progressive that ended with a trip down memory lane - DM’s ‘Enjoy the Silence’ brought festivities to a close in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Overall, Snowbombing was a week of top shelf fun. The music was good, and there was variety to it which well suited a week-long event such as this. But in the end, an event such as Snowbombing is about much more than just the music. It’s about hitting the slopes. It’s about enjoying the wonderful surroundings. It’s about the village vibe. It’s about a thousand freaks at a dress up street party. And it’s about the Jagermeister.