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Steamboat Magazine

Bud Light Rocks the Boat Free Steamboat Springs Concerts Unveiled

12/29/2015 01:54PM ● By Dan Greeson

From reggae to rock, international to home-grown and full on country strumming to laid back positive vibes, this year’s Bud Light Rocks the Boat line-up is one of the most diverse and features something for everyone spanning Grammy-award winning, internationally acclaimed and genre-breaking bands.

“The Bud Light Concert Series has become one of the resort’s most popular and anticipated events of the season,” said Katie Brown, vice president of sales and marketing for Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. “Whether an up-and-coming group or band at its pinnacle, these shows have grown into a powerhouse of live music with performers playing their hearts and souls out every time.”

The season kicks off with fun loving, hard driving duo of contemporary country as Walker McGuire performs for the annual Bud Light Cowboy Downhill, celebrating its 42nd anniversary this season. Jordan Walker and Johnny McGuire are from the heart of the USA and this Nashville-based team is chasing their dream of making a mark on the music industry. And making a mark they have, especially during their live performances. 

No strangers to Steamboat, the internationally acclaimed FORCE of MarchFourth Marching Band takes audience members of all ages, from all walks of life, on a joy-inducing, foot-stomping, booty-shaking, soul-stirring journey that defies categorization.  MarchFourth is the perfect band to celebrate Mardi Gras in Steamboat.

Steamboat turns up the heat for spring break in March with weekly shows San Francisco-based, dance-fusion collective, Afrolicious; indie-rockers on a mission to move bodies and souls, Magic Giant; 80s cover band, Goonies; and Melbourne-based Jakubi, full of Australian flavors and irresistible rhythms.

In April, Steamboat’s Springalicious Festival closes out the Bud Light Rocks the Boat Concert Series with a high-energy, on-stage performance by Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad; followed a week later by an end-of-season closing weekend double header featuring triple Grammy-award winning, Ozomatli, on Saturday, April 9, followed by a very special show (announced at the end of February) on Sunday, April 10. 

The following outlines the full schedule of free concerts as part of the Bud Light Rocks the Boat FREE Concert Series: 

January 18 – Walker McGurie

February 6 – MarchFourth Marching Band

March 5 – Afrolicious

March 12 – Magic Giant

March 19 – Goonies

March 26 – Jakubi

April 2 – Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad

April 9 – Ozomatli

April 10 – TBA at end of February

 “Our success has always been centered around featuring a variety of musical genres that resonate with a wide audience while providing a fun and entertaining experience,” said John Waldman of Great Knight Productions and co-producer for the Bud Light Rocks the Boat series. “There isn’t a show you will want to miss this season.”

 The Bear River terrace showed that it is the place to be, providing the ultimate viewing location for all the Bud Light Rocks the Boat concerts, presented by Bud Light and the Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. For more information, check out www.steamboat.com/concerts.


SCHEDULE

 

Walker McGuire                   

Monday, January 18                      

Bud Light Cowboy Downhill

Jordan Walker and Johnny McGuire are from the heart of the USA – Vernon, Texas and Fairway, Kansas. Walker McGuire was formed in May 2012 and is making unprecedented progress with almost 20,000 Facebook likes to date–making their mark as true singer songwriters. The songs speak for themselves and include: The Color Pink, Hurry On Home, Ole What’s Her Name, American Dream, Best Kind of Bad, Holly Would, among several others. After a year of playing Broadway bars and writers nights in Nashville, the two were discovered by Big D and Bubba, the hosts of a nationally syndicated Radio Show. Every week, Chasin' The Dream airs on radio stations across the USA and on Armed Forces Radio all over the world, where listeners can follow Walker McGuire and be a part of Jordan and Johnny’s determined quest towards making a mark on this industry

 

MarchFourth Marching Band    

Saturday, February 6                       

Steamboat Mardi Gras

MarchFourth Marching Band (M4) is a mobile big band spectacular, propelled by electric bass, a diverse percussion ensemble and brassy horn section. Visually enhanced by costumed dancing beauties, acrobatic stilt walkers, unicycles, fire arts, life size marionettes, and many more theatrics, M4 invokes dancing in the streets and beyond! The sound is huge, melodic, and dynamic, taking audiences on a musical journey around the globe. M4 writes and performs its own material, and also draws inspiration from an eclectic range of worldwide influences, such as Eastern European gypsy brass, samba, Latin, funk, afro-beat, big-band, jazz, and rock music, as well as television, film, circus, and vaudeville. With exceptional musical quality and energy, and the spectacle of the dancers, M4 rocks with the best of them, entertaining the audience with an over-the-top explosion of performance, color and charisma.

 

Afrolicious                                                          

Saturday, March 5                            

Bud Light Rocks the Boat

Afrolicious, the live/electronic collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area, started out not as a band but as a club night at the famed Elbo Room in The Mission District in 2007. The format of Afrolicious party was very open and included the DJs spinning the latest soulful dance music including Afro-House, broken beat, modern funk and disco alongside classics and re-edits and remixes of their favorite Afrobeat, Salsa alongside live percussionists and guest MCs and musicians. Eventually morphing into a live band led by the production and arrangement skills of Pleasuremaker, many dancers, DJs and producers began to take notice of their unique sound. Since the release of their first two EPs which were produced by Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation, the reputation of the band and founding DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz have grown and they have performed everywhere from Red Rocks, Burning Man, Cielo and the Greek Theatre in Berkeley.

  

Magic Giant                                                         

Saturday, March 12                         

Bud Light Rocks the Boat

Like a banjo player and a DJ rocking a club show in a barn, Magic Giant is a band on a mission to move bodies and souls. The group kicked off 2015 with a performance on KEXP hosted by John Richards (credited for discovering The Lumineers’ Ho Hey). They have since been featured on Spotify’s New Music Tuesday, Billboard for Artist on the Verge, and NPR’s Songs We Love, which proclaimed, This L.A. indie-folk band has a summer festival anthem on its hands. Described by some as rave-folk, Magic Giant has been turning clubs into dance parties on their maiden US headline tour, concluding with a full house at the legendary Troubadour in Los Angeles. Magic Giant continues to build a reputation for its anthemic sing-alongs, blending organic instruments with big drums and electronic beats. The band is composed of Austin Bis on lead vocals; Zambricki Li on banjo, mandolin, and fiddle; and Brian Zaghi on upright bass and acoustic guitar.

 

Goonies                                                                

Saturday, March 19                         

Bud Light Rocks the Boat

Based in Boulder, CO, this 4-piece rock band will rip your shirts off with their shredding guitar solos and unravel your sense of space and time.  Founded in 1985, after escaping a kidnapping by a large Sasquatch, the young rock stars decided to travel through time and come light up the 21st century. While you may wake up with crimped hair, a sore neck, and no recollection of the last 12 hours, The Goonies never... ever.... say Hangover.

 

Jakubi                                                                   

Saturday, March 26                         

STARS Mtn Challenge & Rocks the Boat

Jakubi is a Melbourne-based band composed of two brothers, two cousins and one friend whose love for producing music brought them together and whose pure talent propelled them forward. Jakubi’s unique flavor stems from an irresistible combination of jangly guitars, hip-hop beats and sailing synth rhythms. Flawlessly melding the sounds of a talk box one minute and reggae-inspired guitar the next; the band’s infectious experimental songs are guaranteed to get everyone dancing. 2014 saw the band touring two continents and three countries including Australia, the US and Canada. Since the release of their first single in 2013, the band’s music has been streamed on SoundCloud almost 5 million times and has amassed over 4 million views across YouTube. Starting 2015 off with a bang, the band has released its debut EP, Holiday, to critical acclaim, gaining further attention from industry insiders and fans alike.

 

Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad               

Saturday, April 2                               

Springalicious-Bud Light Rocks the Boat

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad (GPGDS) formed in 2001 in Rochester, New York. A mysteriously fertile area for developing the U.S. reggae scene, the city has ties going back to 1981. In these formative years, GPGDS began to explore their songs with an experimental approach that is stylistically akin to the Grateful Dead, while keeping their roots firmly planted in reggae rhythms and lyrical content. Around 2005 tapers began to notice and soon after one of the band’s first Colorado shows received homepage placement on the popular taper website Archive.org. Almost overnight they became a mainstay on the jam band festival circuit. GPGDS is known for folding the aesthetics of the jam band scene into the structures of reggae. In the live setting, the band performs extended jams. On their current album, they have synthesized their approach by weaving traditional folk instrumentation into a foundation of reggae, with arrangements that let the reggae breathe in a non-traditional way.

 

Ozomatli                                                              

Saturday, April 9                               

Springalicious-Bud Light Rocks the Boat

Bursting onto the L.A. stage with their first eponymously titled album in June 1998, Ozomatli capitalized on being the talk of the live music scene, particularly their show stopping gigs at venues such as Dragonfly, Opium Den and The Viper Room. By 1999, they were touring with Carlos Santana and soon won the 2001 Grammy for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album. They repeated history in 2004 by winning again in the same category for their album Street Signs. When they were formed, Ozomatli symbolized an emerging, multicultural Los Angeles. Over the years Ozomatli has become the ultimate jam band, pulling together the strands of creativity into a unique rhythmic machine. And learning to live together, like the city they represent, has made their music even stronger.  Ozomatli closed out Steamboat’s 2008/09 season with a huge crowd and a concert that is stilled remembered by many.

 

TBA                                                                        

Sunday, April 10                                

Springalicious-Bud Light Rocks the Boat

The band for the final day concert will be announced at the end of February.  Stay tuned!