Alison and I had time to go up for the day to Park City and scope out the Sundance Film Festival after the Alt Summit. I’ve never been to Sundance or Park City, so I was stoked. We tood the day trip with 4 new friends from the Alt conference and the 6 of us had a blast. I was totally blown away!
We didn’t see any movies. Or any celebrities, as we had hoped. And it’s easy not see a movie while you’re at Sundance. There’s so much going on in the quaint, charming town of Park City during the festival. Art installations, Pop-up venues to hang out and stay warm. Cool, locally-owned boutiques. And loads of live music.
So, that was our plan—to check out the live music. The snow was coming down pretty hard, and taking shuttles to movie theatres and trying to get on a waiting list to see any movie, was looking too complicated.
We took a short, quick walk around main street, grabbed a comforting bite to eat at Zoom, then hitup one of the best live music shows I’ve seen in a few years. Granted I haven’t seen much live music in a few years, but we were all pinching ourselves at how spectacular the venue and performers were.
Here’s highlights from our adventure.
The music café—which only held about 100 people was so personal and intimate. It was basically a studio converted into a performance venue for the festival. For three hours we saw 6 amazing musicians for FREE! Hmm-mmm! Especially when the venue had limited capacity, and was limited to ticket holders. So we totally scored. And the crazy part, is that we almost didn’t get in.
At first the bouncer told us that the venue had reached capacity and that only ticket holders were allowed in. So we walked away. I had stopped at the corner to take a photo, and we found another door into the venue, that lead to the back “re-entry” door. So we went up and the bouncer told us that we had to use the front entry. Then about 6-8 people walked out, and so Alison said to head back to the front and see if the bounce would let us go in if people were leaving. So that’s how we got in. Alison told the front door bouncer that a bunch of people left and to see if we could get in. And so we did.
Here’s the performers.
NOTE: I actually took these shots one-handed, since my other hand was holding a nice, local beer. I’m stoked how well these shots came out. Thanks Mom, Dad & Tim for this great travel camera!
First up was, A Fine Frenzy. She’s beautiful. Her voice was magical. And she could go from a sweet, soft, piano-playing tune to a flirty dance beat. Really dug her!
Mr funk-delight-fusion (yes, I just said that… I’m a dork) or better known as John Forté. Check out his site, there’s some cool stuff, and he’s got a nice logo.
Josh Kelley. (also married to Kathryn Heigl).
His set was acoustic and I really dug it, better than his twangy full production stuff.
One of his songs that’ll be on his new album coming out later this year really floored me. It was about a cowboy who was far from his girl. And she was his angel during his travels back to her. Chorus went something like… “Hallelujah, you’re my angel”.
When he sang that part, it reminded me of Tim. Especially “you’re my angel,” part and seeing the number “12” displayed behind Josh on the backdrop, which is Tim’s lucky number, that teared me up. I didn’t have tears streaming down my face, but my eyes were filled with water and my heart sank a bit. But then I felt a calm, like, Tim was tugging on my shoulder. And I felt this sense that Tim was smiling big down at me, stoked that I was in Park City and wishing he was with me, enjoying the music and letting me know that he wanted me to hear those words. That he’s my angel watching over me.
Ben Taylor. (James Taylor’s and Carly Simon’s son. Can you see it?)
Thank You Sundance. You made the trip up to Utah such a blast. Look forward to coming back.
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