Snowbombing 2011

I went to Mayrhofen with a bunch of media people and hangers-on under the pretense of covering the Volvo Snowbombing Festival, but it felt more like a school trip someone had spiked with speed. On the bus from Munich we were already drinking. The crew was this strange mix—music editors, winter sports guys, PR managers. Wilson Gonzalez Ochsenknecht was there, and his fiancée Bonnie Strange, who was the kind of person who made everything louder just by existing.

We made terrible cocktails on the hotel bed the first night. I played foosball with some British security guys and smoked on the balcony at sunset, feeling stupid and happy. Then we went out.

Mayrhofen had ten party spots, but everyone ended up at the Racket Club—basically a converted sports hall that had been turned into an enormous dance floor. The lineup that year was impossible. Pendulum opened the first night and nearly killed us. I remember thinking I might actually die. Professor Green, Ms Dynamite, 2manydjs. The whole week kept building like that.

Mark Ronson played in this ridiculous ice palace on a mountain with sun pouring in. By the end we were seeing The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, Jamie Woon. I was exhausted and soaked and grinning.

It was stupid. It was perfect. That’s what a press trip is supposed to feel like when you’re young enough to believe going to places and seeing things matters. Looking back, I’m pretty sure it didn’t matter at all. But I’d do it again without thinking.