While twenty-degree temperatures and fresh powder may have been fine for the 7,000 skiers and snowboarders who showed up for Seattle radio station KNDD-FM's third annual Board Stiff conflagration, it wasn't exactly kind to the musicians playing on this frigid mountain pass east of Seattle. Radio festivals such as this usually take place in the summer, or at least indoors during the cold season, but this was an exposed stage at the foot of the ski lifts and the snowboarding jump. The sold-out crowd, happily swathed in their winter best, certainly didn't seem to mind.

"We never do gigs like this," grumbled Specials bassist Horace Panter in the dressing room (actually the Lift Maintenance Shop -- the only warm spot on the site) minutes before his band's set. "We don't play in the daylight, let alone the snow," he added. Specials singer Neville Staples seemed to be taking it in stride, content to smile serenely as he ran in place and practiced high kicks in his double-breasted sharkskin suit. "You have to warm up no matter what," he grinned.

Rancid had just made it back to the shop after their blistering thirty minutes. Miraculously, the snow, which had been blowing in the faces of the blue-fingered members of Our Lady Peace, had stopped when the Oakland punks went on. It resumed as soon as their set finished.

"Look at that!" exclaimed singer/guitarist Lars Frederiksen. "That happened to us in Holland too. It was raining like crazy till we went on, then it stopped. Started again as soon as we finished. F--kin' freaky."

"It snowed once when I was growing up," Frederiksen continued. "I was a kid ... had no idea what it was, so I slipped on it. And I had just eaten string beans for lunch, so I puked green, too. Naw, no use for this."

Much of the Specials' set was pulled from their new record out last week, Guilty 'Til Proved Innocent. The crowd, more familiar with third-wave ska bands than these twenty-year two-tone vets, still responded appreciatively. Staples, ever the high-energy front man, was in constant motion. The band had plenty of horn punch, and the new songs went over well enough. But it was the old faves like "Gangsters," and especially "A Message To You, Rudy," that received the warmest reaction.

The Specials had to work for it, though. Rancid, who preceded them, not only had a brief stretch of sunlight, but slammed out a couple dozen breakneck ska/punk rockers. Guitarist/vocalist Tim Armstrong, wearing a slogan-covered jacket and beaten jeans that barely clung to his narrow hips, was a blur. That the cold was knocking the tune out of their guitars didn't much matter; they cranked out fevered versions of "Salvation," "Time Bomb" and "Ruby Soho." The crowd, which pushed up against the barricade hard enough to break it and send shutterbugs scrambling, chanted for an encore at the end of Rancid's set. But in a package affair like this, there were no come-backs.

Our Lady Peace were also well received, even if their songs are not based on simple, danceable rhythms. "Superman's Dead" and "Clumsy" have now acquired sing-a-long status, and the audience's willing participation seemed to help the players weather the storm.

"We're just trying to be out there as much as possible," lead singer Raine Maida afterwards. "We're planning on doing our own festival this summer, touring with the same line up." Drummer Jeremy Taggart added that the band had been out for fourteen months and could possibly be playing until the end of the year. "It's how we connect with the audience," he said.

"We're in this for the long run," said Maida, "we don't want to be a one-hit wonder. Some bands, that's all they care about. We've been together for five years and we want to continue on. It's also why we like doing all-ages shows like this one. Last year we only did two where the audience was eighteen and up."

Opening act Harvey Danger has also been around Seattle for five years, but it's only in the last five weeks that they've risen from obscurity, due to the runaway hit single "Flagpole Sitta."

"It's the same song, same mix we put out a year ago on the album [Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone], but The End (KNDD) picked it up and it became their most requested record." The band recently signed with Polygram, quit their day jobs and were flying to Minneapolis the next day to shoot a video.

"We've never toured, never played much out of Seattle," said lead singer Sean Nelson. "We thought we were doing well if we had a headlining gig on a Friday night. So coming here and playing in front of all these people, even as an opener, is a real nice change."

The lovable but snotty San Diego punk trio Blink 182 closed the day-long show. Understandably, they did not play naked.