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John
“I get knocked down, but I get up again.” The organisational disruptions to the thirteenth Rocky Mountain Audio Fest caused by the Marriott Tech Center’s ongoing renovations saw one of the most popular Stateside audio shows come on as same-same but different in 2016. After all, a dog with three legs is still a dog – it just walks in a different way.
Despite an opening morning power outage, the Circus-tented CanJam came in a long way north of the doom and gloom that preceded it. Ditto the outdoor pods, one of which hosted Classic Album Sundays’ playback sessions which went down as follows:
Friday:
2pm Stevie Wonder – Innervisions
5pm Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Saturday:
12pm Joni Mitchell – Blue
3pm Radiohead – OK Computer
Sunday:
11am Billie Holiday – Lady in Satin
2pm Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
With a self-imposed mandate to cover as much hardware as possible, I missed ’em all but anyone bringing the entirety of Spirit of Eden to an audio show deserves a trophy.
More surprising was hearing CAS’ broader playback palette reflected in a wider-than-usual array of demo music spun by exhibitor’s in the main building’s eleven storey tower.
Bowie’s Blackstar made a coupla key appearances. Aurender went with “Tis A Pity She Was A Whore” whilst KEF floored us with the quietly devastating “Lazarus” – the closest I’ve come tears at an audio show. Not tears of pain from the usual wafer-thin range of music choices, you understand. I heard more off-the-cuff jokes about “No more Diana Krall” than her music itself.
RMAF 2016 Attendees were also treated to a broader, freer range of music than any other audio show I’ve attended to date: Radiohead’s “Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box” showd up in the SIMAudio room; Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” bleeped and blooped through the DEQX systems; a cut from Peter Gabriel’s Up swelled like a tidal wave in the Bel Canto room; Mark Sossa of Well Pleased AV dropped some Aphex Twin (“Windowlicker”) and a slice of DJ Shadow (“Midnight In A Perfect World”); David Solomon of Peachtree Audio included some CHVRCHES in his tightly-curated demo; Johan Coorg of KEF introduced us to some brand new Massive Attack.
Elsewhere, more customary audiophile fare – classical, opera, white dude blues – could still be found but crucially, for once, it didn’t dominate.
Look, listen:
Best RMAF ever? In terms of musical diversity, double thumbs up from this techno-roller.
However, one tower exhibitor stood head and shoulders above the rest when it came to otherworldly selections. And for once it wasn’t Zu Audio. Head on down here to learn who.
Further information: Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
