It was a decade and a half ago, early April, 2008.
Jo Dee Messina, the country song-singing pride of Massachusetts, took the small outdoor stage on the plaza on a pleasant spring afternoon in Breckenridge, Colo., and rocked it. Light snow started falling and she rocked it some more.
She told the crowd she wasn’t feeling all that great, but it didn’t affect her performance one bit. She rolled through hit after hit in an up-close and personal concert and took requests from those standing several feet away. Others dancing and living it up on the balconies of the high-rise condos next door shouted their requests down, too.
Messina bantered with the crowd and played on and on.
The show was tremendous and ranks up there with my best musical memories, easily top five, and affirmed my long-held notion that the mountains are made for music.
OK, so it’s not exactly a profound pronouncement and truth be told a lot of places are made for music (AC/DC at Gillette and the Adam Ezra Group on Boston Harbor cruises are very high on my list of best live shows ever as well). But there’s something about music and the mountains in the winter and spring (probably in the summer, too, but that’s a story for another season).
Now, after a couple of pandemic-stalled winters, music is back in the mountains.
There’s something about the cold air. The snow. Or maybe it’s more about the people who love the cold air and love the snow and have no qualms about going out in subfreezing temperatures and less than ideal conditions to catch their favorite bands in their favorite places: at the Widowmaker Lounge at Sugarloaf or The Matterhorn at Sunday River or in the Snow Barn at Mount Snow, or at the Woodstock Inn Brewery, just off I-93 in North Woodstock, N.H., next door to Loon Mountain.
“For me, it’s not necessarily about the mountains themselves, but the people who inhabit those mountains,” says Riley Parkhurst, a 23-year-old singer/songwriter out of Conway, N.H., and the name behind the Riley Parkhurst Project, a fun mountain-based group. “A lot of the music we listen to and perform is based off the music us mountain dwellers listen to. “We play classic rock, ‘80s tunes, alternative, pop punk, and other music skiers love to listen to and have a good time with after skiing.”
Parkhurst, it should be noted, is a part-time mountain dweller these days. She’s a 2022 graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston and now works at the school as a production manager with shows at its performance venues.
During the holidays, she had a busy schedule with her band back in New Hampshire’s mountains, playing at Cranmore and Attitash mountains, the Woodstock Inn, the Red Parka Pub in Glen, and other après ski hot spots.
Actually, getting a ski season kick out of mountain music does not necessarily require much in the way of a venue. I’ve enjoyed après ski tunes in ski lodges and bars at Cannon and Bretton Woods, Ragged Mountain and Pats Peak in New Hampshire, Bolton Valley in Vermont, and Saddleback in Maine in recent years with hopefully much more to come.
Outdoor concerts and music festivals — such as Sugarloaf’s long-running Reggae Fest, scheduled for April 7-9 and Killington’s Dazed and Defrosted event, Saturday, April 22, and also with a reggae flavor — break out in the spring.
Will Mallett and his Mallett Brothers Band, Portland, Maine-based rockers, have their roots in the mountains and enjoy any chance to get back. Will and his brother, Luke — their father is the popular folk singer David Mallett — grew up in Sebec, Maine, about 45 minutes away from Greenville, Maine, which is on Moosehead Lake and home to Big Squaw Mountain Ski Area.
“We grew up skiing at Big Squaw and taught lessons there,” Will says. “It’s a been a big part of our lives. Some of our favorite shows have been at Big Squaw. We’ve played a lot of ski resorts. There always seems to be real good energy in the mountains. Everyone is having a good time and is excited to be there.”
The Mallett Brothers play Sugarloaf and Sunday River, Jay Peak, and Killington, and in Saranac Lake, N.Y. They regularly play Rangeley, the home of Saddleback Mountain that has been bouncing back in a big way since reopening in 2020 after being shuttered for five years.
“We love making it into the hills,” Will says. “Hopefully the weather’s all right and you hunker down for the weekend. There’s definitely something about the mountains. It’s an inspiration for making good music and having a good time.”
Check the website of your favorite ski resort: most, if not all, have season-ending events and festivals and most of them involve — or are even built around — music.
In the meantime, there are the regular offerings at the ski lodge or in establishments just down the road.
Wednesdays are for acoustic guitar and the other nights of the week feature live piano music in the dining room at the Trapp Family Lodge — speaking of the hills being alive — in Stowe, Vt. The Black Line Tavern at Magic Mountain in Vermont has a great reputation for après ski.
Killington has Dazed and Defrosted as one of its spring highlights to help wrap up the season.
The resort, long known for its spring skiing, has always been big on pairing its events — large and small — with music, whether it be après ski in its base lodges, night-time efforts at the Wobbly Barn or other mega-celebrations.
The mountain has upped its early season game, too, by pairing the FIS World Cup races on Thanksgiving weekend with major musical offerings. A few years ago, it was Vermont’s Grace Potter along with Recycled Percussion from New Hampshire headlining for huge crowds. This year, Michael Franti played the event.
Yes, music has returned to the mountains.
“Music is a big part of the mountains and that experience when you come to a resort,” said Courtney DiFiore, senior communications manager for the northeast for Vail Resorts. “To have a lull in that and to not have events, really showcases how integral it is and how it impacts the overall experience in a mountain town. Now that it’s back, I think it’s even more exciting. It’s the age-old saying, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ It’s good to have it back.”
The Snow Barn at Mount Snow is back in full swing and had a sold-out New Year’s Eve show and has a mix of ticketed and free shows ahead with its own reggae fest with Roots of Creation in late March.
Okemo has Après Afternoons on selected weekends through the season and Vail’s outdoor Music Den Unplugged trailer is on tour to the resort’s ski areas throughout the region. Vail’s Hunter Mountain Resort in New York is big into music as well.
We’ll be heading into the mountains as often as possible in the weeks ahead, always seeking skiing. And music to go with it.
Allen Lessells can be reached at lessfam321@gmail.com.