The British Championships 2013 may not have been blessed with the best weather, but that didn’t stop the riders from throwing down. Or the parties from going off – c’mon, we’re British, it takes a more than a bit of snow to piss on our parade!
The move from Laax to Tignes gave the organisers a whole host of new venues to use each evening, from the epic mountain-side rave at the top of the Grande Motte glacier to the smelly sweatbox of ze Blue Girl club, site of many of the week’s most entertaining incidents.
It was here that London’s Lazy Habits kicked off proceedings on the Monday night, with their unique mix of brass, beats and rhymes getting the crowd bouncing right from the off. As well as originals like ‘Starting Fires‘ and ‘Even Out‘, they rinsed through covers of Justice vs. Simian and Daft Punk’s Around the World that predictably had the entire club singing along.
Tuesday saw The Cheerleaders (think classic alpine covers band with added beards) playing a set of rock anthems which had people doing this…
In addition to the hundreds of Brits’ Festival goers getting their dancing shoes on, the resort was also packed out with several hundred students and unknown number of attendees of Gay Ski Week.
The later it got each evening, the more the divisions between the groups disappeared, until everyone ended up bumping and grinding (oo-err) against each other in the appropriately-named ‘Le Melting Pot’ club until the early hours of the morning. And yes, the Gay Ski Week goers included at least two six-foot ‘ladies’ with massive hands…
It all added to the atmosphere though.
After an epic Thursday in 90s fancy dress (think glow-sticks, an excellent Wayne and Garth, Ali G and an all-male Spice Girls) spent dancing to the retro dance anthems of Club Classics, the students and the Brits-goers joined forces to take the Grand Motte by storm, flocking en masse up the cable car to hear the sounds of The Nextmen.
After all that, it was perhaps little wonder that many people took Friday night off – although Whitelines’ web editor soldiered on through, hitting the Saloon bar for one final fling – but most of us were already dazed at the amount we’d managed to pack into a few short nights.
The smell of cheap duty-free rum and coke is still fresh in the nostrils… but we’ll definitely be heading back for more next year. See you there!
