Photo by Celina Dalrymple

The World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler BC is now a two time host to solo-acoustic wizard, Keller Williams, who is well known for his variety of instruments, wicked imagination and creative song writing. The WSSF is a free event that spans over 10 days of winter sports, live music, and general end-of-season mayhem on the top of the mountain. The String Cheese Incident, EOTO, and DJ Z-Trip are among some of the other great musical acts to have hit the festival in past years.

On Sunday, April 14th, at 4:10pm, Keller took the main stage of the festival, which is conveniently located right beside the Whistler Gondola at the bottom of the mountain. The WSSF is visually entertaining all around, being one of the few festivals where you can literally enjoy the live main stage show, while watching the skiers and snowboarders ride the mountain at the same time. Keller’s set began slowly, which may have been attributed to some issues getting his sound to the right levels, but it only took a few minutes to get the unsuspecting crowd to their feet. A few songs in, things picked up and the Keller we know and love was in full force with great sound, and his usual fun and imaginative style. For the majority of the set, he stuck mainly to the acoustic guitar and bass but also did his periodic looping to add some dance grooves behind the scenes.

The winter crowd who were dressed ready for the weather, consisted mainly of the unfamiliar, but also included a few lucky fans who knew they were being treated to something very unique and special on this grey Sunday in Whistler. A few requests that were thrown out by the audience (“Best Feeling”; “Doobie in my pocket”), were picked up by Keller and generously given back to pleased KW fans. The set list also included “Ain’t no rest for the wicked” and “Back of the Bus”, which contributed to building up the overall energy of the show. It was great to see the majority of the crowd stick around for the full two hour set, with Keller being an artist that you need have a full show experience to really appreciate his unparalleled style. The performance ended on the note that if we wanted to catch him again, we could see him at his Monday late night gig (also in Whistler at part of the festival), or while we were “up on the mountain”. This high energy performance and overall fantastic set-list is sure to gain Keller many new fans both from Canada and all over the world.