Fuji Rock is a bit of a misnomer, as it was held at the Naeba Ski Resort over in Niigata prefecture (which prefers to be called Jishin Central), and not by Fuji-san! Well, Niigata is on the north-west coast of Japan, so it wasn't really that far. A 45 min Shink ride to Tokyo, then another 1:15 hour ride to the camp site.
Here is my friend, Leonie and I, about to enter the festival for the first time. The weather was perfect, and by perfect, I mean a little too hot to where you can wrap your head in a cold-soaked towel and feel like it's just 75 degrees out. On Sunday, clouds came in and out, occasionally dropping some rain on us during some of the sets. I was fine because I had my good friend, Heineken, not too far away from me.
The Red Marquee the 3rd smallest stage where some of the smaller bands played. Here is the line-up for this stage.
We made some fuckin' noise.
This is Blonde Redhead. They played the songs I wanted to play, and I wanna buy the new album.
I must say, though, that my all time favorite show was The Cure.
They kicked ass! Robert Smith may be 50 whatever these days, but he's still got that same Robert Smith charm. Besides that, I've never seen them live before, so I'm used to the recordings they made 20 years ago....but they play so much better now than they used to, which made listening to Disintegration, Let's go to bed, Just like Heaven, The Forest, The Walk, Lovesong, Never Enough, Close to Me, HotHotHot, Pictures of you, Facination St., Lullaby, A night like this, so much better than I've ever heard them before. By the way, yes....they played all those songs. Amazing, I know.
I was in a trance that brought me back to feeling like a 16 year old angst-ster. It was truly my highlight.
The Chemical Brothers were also pretty fucking awesome. I like their new shit. I took a lil bits of video that i might put up later.
Some other honorable mentions are as follows:
Kaiser Chiefs were surprisingly good, and were very good with the crowd. Fun.
I also really enjoyed Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.
Mika sucked ass.
Deerhoof was cute.
Electrelane were good musically, but not so good with the crowd. I wish they were more bad ass.
Iggy was fucked up, but that's why we love him. He reminded me of Ozzy if he took his FACE-OFF and replaced it with Skeletor. That's not saying that I don't respect the dude. His encore was a repeat of his 1st song which riled up the crowd--I wanna be your Dog. I like that song, so I didn't mind. He called a bunch of people up on the stage to dance around with him...then got a little paranoid when trying to get them back down.
The Beastie Boys were alright. I've seen them have better shows. Too short.
!!! was pretty good. I'd download their musik if only !!! was searchable on limewire:)
The Shins played the songs I wanted them to. But they didn't seem to be very good with the crowd either. But I guess that's how scensters are supposed to be. Too hip to be cool.
Joss Stone reminded me of Rachel. She kind of looked like her, and had that way of singing. Most of you don't know her, but there's nothing else i can compare it to.
I thought her back-up vocalists were much better singers than her, but old black ladies don't sell here in Japan, I suppose.
I bought a YoLeYoLe CD. Ya, they are soft and hippy. But she sings Japanese very clearly and slowly, to where I could actually understand parts of her songs. So it is hippy, maybe, but good Japanese practice. So shut up already, gosh!
On Saturday night, I went to see Space Cowboy and Simian Mobile Disco with Aine and Ross. They were good, we danced, and after the others went to sleep, I wandered around alone checking out the party people, waiting till 2:30am for Justice to play, which was introduced to me not long ago by Davey. They were good. I also saw a bit of Teenage Bad Girl, but soon got too tired, especially knowing that the campsite is a 20 min. walk away uphill.
I was sad to have missed Juliette Lewis' band. But Ross said that she didn't get naked onstage like she usually does, so there you go.
Even though i didn't make Groove Armada, I did have that "shakin' that ass" song in my head during their set.
I called this the sausage lolly. The things these people do with sausages.
This is dinosaur thigh. But seriously, how do they get the meat peices that big?
After you pass through the birth canal, you come to a strange and fantastic place.
The festival at night is very pretty. So many pretty, bright things to look at. It reminded me of Electric Daisy Carnival. Janine and Kenny, you know what I'm talking about, like shiny and acidic.
They had a massage booth. Genius.
They had a nice Alpine river to go to when you needed to be cooled. Although there was a rope that said, "do not cross".
The campground was a golf course. A very beautiful green grassy bed.
One of the dozens of recycling centers. As I've said before, Kirei means both beautiful and clean. In Japan, they are the same. Everyone is very conscious of their trash.
Brilliant! These next few are some photos of the Nihonjin enjoying themselves.
I asked this guy if I could buy his shirt. Just kidding....i wasn't drunk enough to be that big of a douchebag, yet.
And the players......
Leonie, Anne, Me, Aine, Ross
Look at all of our cups. Quite frankly, I thought there'd be more.
Louise, Melissa, and Michelle
Michelle and her J-boy, Mori
Louise and Amir
It was a blast.....thanks goes to Spongebob. Ya, know what I'm talkin' about.....
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