Once again Sun Valley proved to be worth every mile traveled by car, airplane, kayak, snowshoe, pack mule, sherpa, and on foot, which BTW I believe are all the modes of transportation Johnny used to actually arrive there last Saturday—nearly 24 hours later than planned, and with bonus random stop in Grand Junction, CO, for apparently no reason at all other than to make sure that he arrived back in SLC just in time to miss his second booked flight to Sun Valley Friday night. OK then.
But travel drama aside—and every year it’s pretty much an adventure for either Johnny or fans or both to make their way to this beautiful but rather isolated mountain enclave—it was an amazing weekend highlighted by Johnny’s absolutely breathtaking performances, which were all the more incredible given that he had had zero ice time the week before in LA, he was exhausted, he had no rehearsal, and he had to contend with the high altitude with not a moment to adjust.
And he was, of course, brilliant.
We begin our coverage with Creep, which is not the first thing that happened chronologically (that would be me enjoying a cringeworthy entanglement with Johnny’s scarf while greeting him at the airport with other fans, but we’ll get into that later...), but is most definitely the first thing everyone wants to see.
This poignantly beautiful program has been somewhat shrouded in mystery since its debut in Japan earlier this year, where photography and videography are not allowed at ice shows. So all we’ve had up to this point are some tantalizingly tiny pics from one of the wire services, one low-res video, and countless Instagram clips from one of the Japan broadcasts, for which we were tremendously grateful.
But not anymore.
Following are selected photos from his performance, with more to come, plus yes, gorgeous HD video below. This is a program worth watching over and over just for the costume, let alone the skating, so please take your time and savor the photos and video throughout your weekend. All of these pics are gloriously huge and detailed, so please do click to see the full-size images.
Our photo series begins with Johnny waiting in the wings while the announcer introduces him...
VIDEO!
I love how much this crowd loves him. ♥
Video link.
Alternate link.
BONUS VIDEO
Teaser clip of Johnny at the preshow warmup. Shot with a cellphone through hockey glass, and still beautiful anyway. More preshow coverage to come....!
Video link.
Exclusive photos © David Keyser.
