The Cool Kids took to the stage at the Riverwalk Center in the Winter wonderland of Breckenridge, Colorado last week as the live-music segment of the kickass sports & multimedia event Winter Dew Tour kicked off, dealing the snow bunnies and mountain conquerers a dose of their fun club-cramming beats and hookalicious rhymes.
Show openers The Knocks did their best with what's essentially the opposite of their ideal workspace - a dimly-lit room full of under-20 white kids fresh off the slopes and waiting for a hip-hop act isn't quite as fertile musical soil as a room full of rolling praters with glowsticks. All the same, Ben “DJ B-Roc” Ruttner and James “JPratt” Patterson did their damnedest to rile the attention-deficit crowd, and largely succeeded, despite the odds.
Bridging old-school rhyme designs with modern party-flavor hip-hop, The Cool Kids staked their claim as one of the more fun & upbeat rap duos on the circuit. Swagger style and seasoned confidence built from relentless touring and accelerating accolades shone clearly as Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks mixed up tracks from their Bake Sale debut EP, as well as gems from Gone Fishin' and Tacklebox mixtapes. There was even a sampling of some new material off the duo's eternally-awaited When Fish Ride Bicycles album, as the beat-drops and playful atmosphere took full command over the shivering masses.
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The youthful energy and playfulness of the Cool Kids' early days (evident in their volumes of YouTube footage) remained consistent in the frigid Riverwalk Center, and the duo didn't half-step their way through a performance that, at such high altitudes, left the rappers a bit breathless between songs. It's not that the Chicago rhymers were out of shape - far from it, as the duo commanded the stage with buoyancy. The altitude simply meant that both talent and audience were working twice as hard for the air we were breathing.
While the track "A Little Bit Cooler" lit some fires up front among the young boarders relentlessly high-fiving Mikey Rocks at every pass, when the Cool Kids laid into their latest hit "Big Talk," not an ass in the house was still. The set closed triumphantly, leaving the Breckenridge crowd wondering what the hell's taking this irresistible duo so long to break big.
With a little luck - and the eventual release of When Fish Ride Bicycles - we're sure to be seeing a lot more prominence from the Cool Kids in the future.
Stay tuned for our full Winter Dew Tour coverage, including interviews with the athletes and an exclusive private lesson from snowboarding legend Keir Dillon!
