rally car - band - telus world ski and snowboard festival

As part of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, there are a series of free outdoor concerts featuring a bunch of bands that I don’t know all too well. Maybe by the end of this weekend, I’ll have a few more songs for downloading onto my iPod. On the first day arriving at Whistler, we spent a few minutes checking out what these rockers had to offer.

In the picture above, you can see Stephen Fung testing out his professional amateur photography skills. Ed Lau was also there with me, snapping about 1000 pictures over the course of the day. That’s what happens when you have a rapid-fire DSLR accompanied by a seemingly never-ending supply of CompactFlash memory cards.

Rally Car is a band based out of Vancouver and they served as our first concert. They won the 99.3 FM The fox Vancouver Seeds Contest and they’ve toured across Canada. There were a little lacking in the energy department, but I’m totally digging this picture of the drummer.

rally car - band - telus world ski and snowboard festival

I’m not terribly familiar with their music, but attending this festival could be seen as an extension of the great Guitar Hero side effect. Maybe they’re worth checking out. Gotta support that local talent, right?

rally car - band - telus world ski and snowboard festival

The second concert, which came about 20 minutes later, was illScarlett. The name rings a bell and I’ve probably heard them on the radio before. illScarlett (billed as Ill Scarlett in the official program for some reason) was also nominated for a 2008 Juno Award for New Group of the Year.

They’re based out of Mississauga and offer a “set of fist-pumping ska, surf-punk, pop and reggae jams.” I guess rock isn’t in their arsenal. Strangely, one of their performances was a cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” Anyways, here they are.

illscarlett - telus world ski and snowboard festival

illscarlett - telus world ski and snowboard festival

illscarlett - telus world ski and snowboard festival

Free concerts are great. I took a couple of videos, but the audio is one big garbled mess. I must have been far too close to the speakers. Do you guys still want to see them?

UPDATE (4/12/08 @ 2:15pm): Correction about the number of pics that Ed took. It was actually closer to 2000 photos. That’s a lot of pictures.