Sofi Tukker At Ford Park

I was trying to figure out what was going on here.

The Europeans know how to party, they make American après-ski look like a joke. In America you might get tanked at a bar, there might be some dancing to a band playing classic rock, but at Ischgl especially...sure, there's skiing, but people go there to cut loose, to dance...you watch the videos and are amazed, they're aliens having such a good time, you want to experience it.

And ski resorts in America have been trying to replicate these extravaganzas, but so far to no avail... Maybe it's just that Americans take their skiing more seriously, whereas in Europe...skiing might be secondary to lunch and what happens after the lifts close.

So Vail books name acts a few weekends through the year, to try and draw patrons if nothing else, and last weekend it was Sofi Tukker.

But usually it's just one big show. On Saturday, they had Sofi Tukker play at the top of the mountain, a la Europe. And another deejay played at the bottom starting before the lifts shut down. And then at 8 P.M., the main show took place, at Ford Park. Outside, during the winter. Hell, they have winter shows at Red Rocks!

So I didn't catch the afternoon performance at Eagle's Nest. But as far as the deejay at the bottom...I've never seen the area so crowded.

And at 7:20, I put on my down jacket and started walking to Ford Park.

I was wearing my New Balances. It didn't occur to me to wear boots with tread, after all it hadn't snowed in a week. But it was slippery and...

I was wearing a down coat, but the lined leather gloves I had just didn't cut it, next time I bring ski gloves, I've got an ancient pair I keep in my boot bag that are perfect for these conditions, I broke them out in Aspen.

As for my hat... It said "Blue Man Group," and the guy manning the medical tent commented on it. Which completely surprised me. I've worn this hat for twenty years and no one has ever said a word.

And that's where I was standing, in back, by the big red cross, waiting for Don, to give me a wristband, which I never used...all the action was in front of the stage, not behind...and I don't know how you'd make your way to the back if you wanted to.

So, the show begins promptly, and it is a show!

Giant screens. Pots emitting fire. It's an extravaganza. I think it was Sophie Hawley-Weld standing atop the risers playing the guitar...but there was no live video feed and I wasn't that close and I was not familiar enough with the band. But one thing I heard was the big thump.

This was what is now called, has been called for nearly two decades, EDM.

Now if you're a classic rocker, you probably don't get it. You may even be categorically against it! A deejay spinning records, which are really files, the whole show can be contained on a thumb drive.

And that's what this show was. The guitar didn't last. Sophie danced and sang and Tucker Halpern was responsible for the beat, the music, the sound. And everybody in the audience was...

Dancing. Not wildly, like this was the end of the world. And not spinning like people do at Dead shows, but hypnotically, locked into the beat.

Were they on drugs?

This was not a young crowd. And it cost a hundred bucks to get in. I worked my way forward, to the degree I could, I checked the attendees out, and most looked like they were of working age, mid-twenties at the youngest, into their thirties. Sure, there were some ski town oldsters, but really, this show was for a younger generation.

And I can get into the beat. It does make you move. But I was wondering, what exactly was the attraction?

And the first thing that occurred to me was escapism. Now back in the nineties, raves were the other. But we've even had hit EDM singles this century. It's not an unknown sound. But...despite Alden telling me it was about the lyrics and Sophie's voice... They didn't seem that special to me.

And the funny thing is Sophie Tukker has been around, since 2014, the acts of yore didn't have such a long heyday. Then again, are they still potent, or is this the kind of act that plays out in the hinterlands?

Now when I lived in the hinterlands, if you got major talent even twice a year that was a big thing. But today, in Vail and Summit County...it's a veritable cornucopia of talent laying down their sound on a regular basis.

Now some of these acts play Goldberg's Belly Up in Aspen, but Aspen is a different headspace. Aspen is four hours from Denver, Vail is under two (assuming there is no traffic, which is a big assumption). And the Belly Up is a smaller room which tends to book elite talent, but...

You see there's a long stretch of highway between Denver and Salt Lake City. And the communities want culture. So at the Vilar and in Vail the shows are often underwritten. And there's an amphitheatre in Dillon and...

There are a ton of shows. You don't have to live in the metropolis to see high level entertainment anymore. But in the old days, it was all happening in the city. Now it still happens more in the city, but...most Americans don't live in New York or L.A. And when you see a show in those markets you can feel the pulse, this is where acts make their bones, these are the shows that count, the press weighs in. But those hundreds of millions across the nation need entertainment and these shows... This is not MTV, playing to all, this is positively local. It's a business for the touring acts, it's their livelihood...the shows are totally off the national radar screen, but is that the business today?

I'm not being completely clear here, but what I will say is it used to be when you were in the boonies, it felt like it. But it did not feel like it at Saturday night's show.

Now you could say the stars of the evening were Sofi and Tukker and their dancers, but really, the audience was the star.

This is not how it used to be. Back in the classic era, there was a clear line of demarcation between those on stage and those off. Those on stage were kings, and those in the audience were serfs paying fealty. But Sofi Tukker was doing it for the audience, to energize them, whereas it used to be those on stage were Gods who appeared not to care about the listeners.

So the audience... It's twenty-odd degrees and they're drinking and dancing (as for drugging, except in extreme cases, that doesn't show)... What exactly was the appeal?

We didn't have this kind of music, this kind of show in the days of yore. Sure, there was music you danced to, but it had singers and changes, songs you heard on the radio. Whereas these numbers...sounded like they came from outer space.

We wanted our music to have meaning.

Sofi Tukker is not about meaning, it's about experience.

Does everybody just want to leave the real world behind? Is it just too daunting, too overwhelming? Do people just want to be set free to be in a zone that has no intersection with the rest of the world?

Now like I said, in the nineties there were raves, which were veritable secrets, you had to be in the know and they took place out in fields and...

But Sofi Tukker...these EDM shows are big business.

So do we pooh-pooh this sound, this experience, laugh at it, or...

It's an anthropological investigation. There is something happening here, but it certainly isn't exactly clear.

But this was big time entertainment. The production was equivalent to that you find in an arena, this was not done on the cheap. You don't find Sofi Tukker in the Spotify Top 50, then again...

The Spotify Top 50 is now the other. People begging for fame, recognition.... Whereas acts like Sofi Tukker seem to hang in the ether, they're part of an overall culture, and if you don't get it, they shrug their shoulders, they don't care.

Now investigating further, going deeper into Sofi Tukker's story, I read about the "hits," the songs they were famous for, and I started to play them.

One is entitled "Drinkee."

Now the lyrics are in Portuguese so...if you think the track had traction because of the lyrics, you're sorely mistaken. As for the English translation, there's nothing special here.

But the music!

You listen for mere seconds and your head starts to nod and if you go as far as two minutes in, you can't get the hook out of your head... And I'm listening on the chairlift and I start to ask myself...is this radically different from "Sunshine of Your Love"? Even "Smoke on the Water"?

Now much of today's rock is hard, and it's fast and noisy and in your face, that's today's metal scene. But that's not what this is. "Drinkee penetrates a much wider net of people, and you come to it, it does not overpower you.

So, are the basics of "Drinkee" that different from the songs of yore, those based on legendary riffs? "Smoke on the Water" told a story, but "Sunshine of Your Love"...had both ethereal and simplistic love lyrics. Are these numbers all of a piece, or can you put the classic rockers high above "Drinkee"?

And I think "Purple Hat" is okay, good, but when "Batsh*t" started playing in my ears... Once again, I was hooked, in the groove.

So was everybody in attendance at the Ford batsh*t crazy, or did they just want to party like it's 1999 or...

I'm still trying to figure it out.

Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nCf35T9r9gn8SgaeHE1q5?si=2d2c4fe289c546ac


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