Fujirockers: The official Fuji Rock Festival blog

While the first wave of Fuji Rock acts are usually announced in early March, seeing as how Smash broke from tradition and revealed headliners The Stones Roses back in November it’s not that surprising that today they released the news that Radiohead will also be headlining FRF ‘12.

This will be Radiohead’s first time to play at FRF.  Frontman Thom Yorke performed on the Green Stage at 2010’s fest with his Atoms for Peace side project.  Reviews of that show were mixed, but I’m guessing a proper Radiohead will draw mass accolades from rain slicker sporting scribes and fans alike.

So we’ve got Radiohead and The Stone Roses on board already for FRF ‘12.  Who’s your guess for the fest’s third headliner?

Thom Yorke photo by Hiroshi Maeda and used with the permission of Fuji Rock Express ‘10.

The plan was to post this earlier, but we’ve all been swamped over the last few weeks.  Anyhow, better late than never, right?

So usually FRF officially announces the dates for the next edition of the fest on New Year’s Day.  Then they release the first wave of acts at the beginning of March.  Breaking with tradition, in November Smash revealed that FRF ’12 will take place from July 27 – July 29 and shared that the recently reunited Stone Roses will be one of the headliners.

Early bird tickets for FRF ’12 will go on sale in early February.  Other acts likely won’t be announced until March (like past years), but we’ll keep you posted if any more names come out before then.

Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown’s voice was a wee bit rough when he performed on the White Stage at FRF ‘10.  Hopefully he’s in better form next summer.  Check out a review of Ian Brown from FRF ‘10 here.

The first thing that needs to be said about Asagiri Jam is that it is perhaps the most beautiful location in the world for a music festival. Mt. Fuji looks down upon the festival site as if the peak was some kind of gathering place for the music gods from which they send their magic to the audience. I hadn’t been to Asagiri for a couple of years and despite it having been amazing weather the other times I had been, I heard that last year the rain was really bad. With the setting being so integral to this festival it seems like those gods upon Fuji were in good spirits this year, gracing us with 2 days of crisp sunny skies with just the right amount of clouds added for optimal beauty.

The pristine nature is certainly one of the best things about this festival but the next thing that needs to be appreciated here is the amazing vibe from all the unique people who come here every year. It is such a feast for the eyes to see the way the festival goers go to extreme lengths to look and act the part for this celebration of humanity. Every point on the color spectrum is represented in the wild and tribal clothes, mostly intensely patterned attire, which the crowd uses as their launching point for further self-expression and exploration. Yes this is indeed a modern hippie festival with people juggling, throwing Frisbees, getting creative with hula hoops and twirling various other objects in the air, all as a means of returning to the simple pleasures of life that can so often be forgotten when you live in Japan’s densely populated cities. More…

So much of a festival takes place far away from the stages, somewhere down a muddy path through the woods or atop the black asphalt of the parking lot. This is where we talk, hang out, and drink beer. As a tribute, here are a few grainy memories from that final night, along with my picks.

Best Moment: Wu Lyf: Guitarist Evans Kati exited the stage mid-set to take a crap leaving frontman Ellery Roberts to kill a few moments which he literally did, asking everyone to think of their last wish on earth before popping a muthafuckin’ cap into the microphone ..”chk chk… boom”

Best Song: The Faces “Oh La La.” I knew this going in, and damnit nobody but Kern cared how many people were in the crowd cuz this was the longest singalong I’ve ever heard. Pretty poignant lyrics too.. “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.” And lets be honest, Ron Wood’s boozy RnB riffs influenced a nation of rock and rollers from Guitar Wolf to Yusuke Chiba who all copped his licks.

Best Band: Wilco. 2011 is a make or break year for Tweedy & Co. and you could see the expectations weighing in mightily on the last remaining alt-country hero. Tweedy is looking as bad as Billy Joel nowadays with a rumpled suit coat and unkempt, graying hair, but he seems to wake-up or genuinely enjoy playing on stage midway through the show. For a young person, he’s already spent half his life on stage, and I’m starting to wonder if anything outside of the stage or recording studio exists for Tweedy.

Best Celebrity Sighting: Mick Jones and Don Letts. Rock and Roll Royalty. Both as pleasant as can be. Mick even chatted about his mum who know lives in Hurley, Wisconsin, and married a G.I.

more pics
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Wrap-up lists are always highly subjective, but I’ve never gone to Fuji Rock and tried to see everything anyway, because with all the running around, you’d completely miss the experience, i.e. the people. And scrolling through the photos on my camera, I got pretty drunk with a lot of people and mainly remember that they were super nice, having an awesome time, and one of them might have been called Otto. So from what I do remember, here are my picks:

MY TOP 5:

CSS at the White Stage (Fri): Its hard not to love Lovefoxxx, especially when she brings it that hard. And she’s not doing it alone. This was just awesome.
Manu Chao’s secret set in the Crystal Palace (Fri): Yup, he was the “special guest.” Later, his Japanese promoter told me the last time he played Fuji Rock, he ended up in the Palace of Wonder playing guitar outside for free anyway, so they just decided to put him on the schedule. As previously noted, the staff of this blog went a little nuts.
The Naked and Famous (Sat): I had a couple linger doubts about this band after seeing them at SXSW, and they all went out the window with one of the tightest sets I’ve seen in a while by a young band. They have one great album. Let’s hope they keep it up.
The Black Angels in the Crystal Palace (Sun): Looked like I picked the wrong day to stop drinking Jack Daniels, and omygod was that surf rock?!?! Double OMG!
Chemical Brothers (Sun): Sure, we joke that they are just up there playing a DVD and secretly checking Facebook, but even if they were, they still rank among the few acts in the world that can get 20,000+ people partying at the Green Stage. And I mean that people were partying all the way in the back!

BEST SHOWS I MISSED: More…

Here were my top-five fave performances from FRF ‘11.  Click on the links to read live reviews of each act’s set at the fest.

1) Amadou and Mariam @ Field of Heaven (7/29) — review here

2) Warpaint @ Red Marquee (7/31) — review here

3) Battles @ Green Stage (7/30) — review here

4) No Age @ White Stage (7/31) — review here

5) Tie: Washed Out @ Red Marquee (7/29) — review here & Obrint Pas @ Orange Court (7/30) — review here

As always, I had a blast in Naeba and hope y’all did too!

Photo by Julen Esteban-Pretel

Despite what you may have heard the rain was tolerable last weekend. It mainly poured in the morning when people were still sleeping off the previous night’s revelries. The precipitation in the daytime rarely got more intense than sprinkles. People thought it was wetter than it was because of the persistent mud, the cooler temperatures, and the almost total lack of sunshine. In fact, if I missed anything deeply it was the glow of twilight behind the Orange Court or White Stage during a late afternoon/early evening performance, and I don’t think I’ve seen that for the last three years. If that’s a sign of climate change, then I’m against it. More…

So another festival has come and gone. Five days later, here’s what I can remember:

Best act: I’m gonna give this one to EKD, though Manu Chao made a good case. There’s something so original about the EKD sound, and so perfect for the last night of a festival. Review here.

Best visuals: The Chemical Brothers’ VJ proved worthy of the Green Field headline slot. And without him, what would that show have been?

Wish I’d seen: Tinariwen. At the time, a 10-minute walk to see Tinariwen seemed like an awful lot to ask. In retrospect it probably wasn’t.

Biggest disappointment: Walking into the Field of Heaven and realising the pizza joint wasn’t there this year.

Best drink: Yona Yona ale

Best blog comment: “Kern, you wouldn’t know a good time if it was riding your mustache.” by Darkstar1st

Best food: Don’t ask me, I’m vegetarian and there was almost nothing to eat. Fuji Rock could be ten times more eco-friendly if it threw all its garbage in one bin, powered everything with powdered rhino horns, but swapped all those meat stands for falafel stands. Or just one of them. Alright, I’ll shut up now.

(photo: EKD by Julen Esteban-Pretel)

With moderate responsibility come great perks. Or however that saying goes.

One of the best Fujirocker perks, (apart from being at Fuji Rock) is the toilets. Yes, real toilets. No lining up for a long row of what starts as decent enough port-a-potties, but graduates towards horrors of unimaginable smell and filth as the weekend progresses. Yes, even in Japan. Especially with the mud.

Anyway, now that I’ve put you off your food enough, time to talk about the real subject of this post – food. The variety of great food and stalls at Fuji Rock is a topic that has cropped up multiple times and it is indeed the best selection of amazing foods I’ve ever seen at a festival.

But back to the perks. As a Fujirocker you also get the choice of a bento for lunch and dinner as well. Some are great, some not so great. And since I can’t resist a freebie, I tried them all. Here’s the final ranking:

More…

Monday morning around 2am I was met with this spectacle: A drummer wearing nothing but a pink thong. (Admittedly this isn’ weird, as I’m a Golden Bomber fan – their drummer is frequently almost naked – the only difference is that his thong is black, or he chooses to wear tighty whities.) A guitarist wearing sunglasses and a jacket that was too small for him, looking suspiciously like Matsumoto-san from B’z. A bassist who looks like SixH’s MINT, or perhaps a Frenchman who hasn’t gotten much sleep this past century.

And a vocalist who dressed like she needed a husband with a pitchfork by her side.

Had I not researched them before that, I wouldn’t have known what to think. Heck, I did research them and I still didn’t know what to think. The band name, XX, is actually chomechome, which is usually used to censor words of a less sophisticated nature.

Needless to say, the following 30 minutes was an eye-opener. Punk tunes and hardcore screams, skirt lifting and plenty of energy. Ah, to be young again.

The bassist climbed up the piled up amps at one point, sat down and started taking pictures of the audience with his iPhone. “Stop taking so many pictures and get down!” demanded the vocalist.

So he started taking pictures of her instead.

Between songs, Natsumi (vo.) mumbled intelligible bits and bobs, but took the time to say, “Thank you Japan.”

Pause.

“I’m from Japan.”

To be honest, I still haven’t figured out what was going on because there was so much happening at once, but I do remember getting some very early Beastie Boy vibes, mixed with The Sex Pistols. What that means, is anyone’s guess. You’ll just have to check them out for yourselves, and I recommend you do – if just to wake you up a bit.

It was certainly better than the coffee I couldn’t buy because it was sold out at Atomic Cafe. (Boo!)

Photo by: 深野輝美

For more　THE xx’ズ craziness, click here.

So much music and so little time. Fuji Rock is just a complete overload of good sounds and trying to the narrow down favorites from the festival is not easy. Here are mine:

1. Reggaelation Independance

2. Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos

3. Mogwai

My top choice definitely goes to the Japanese afrobeat/dub band Reggaelation Independance. Mainly for the fact that there is nothing that I love more than going to see a band or movie that I know absolutely nothing about and then being blown away by it. I stumbled into the Crystal Palace very late on Saturday night not even knowing who was going to be playing there and could not believe how cool these guys were. Looking at their site, I discovered that one of their members is someone they have doing a live dub style mix using echoes and effects on their high energy Fela Kuti style afro funk tunes. What an incredible combination that was.

Photo by 府川展也. More here.

Earlier today I gave myself a hernia. That may seem an unusual introduction to a music review, but it’s pertinent. I skipped a couple of shows today because I couldn’t walk that far to see them. It’s only music, right?
But EKD was one band I really couldn’t miss. They’re the most underrated band I know. I’m sure that you could stick them on the White Stage, not tell anyone what you were doing, and the band would look right at home.
Instead, they’re playing the Naeba Shokudo. The smallest stage at the festival, but also one of the liveliest. It’s a good fit.
As I wrote before, one Fujirocker once described them as Manu Chao meets Dick Dale. That’s bang on. EKD worked the crowd up just as much as Mr Chao did. And here’s where we get to my hernia. Even in my crippled state, I was bouncing in the mud pit, arms around other fans, grinning like an idiot, and I though it was painful as hell, it was fun as hell too. It’s the biggest FRF party I’ve been to since Gogol Bordello played the Crystal Palace. There was a man wrapped in toilet paper climbing a tree to see the show. They outdid the wild Asakusa Jinta party at the same stage on Friday. It’s a shame that tens of thousands of people paid for a ticket but didn’t catch this show.
If FRF 2011 is remembered for anything, it should be that the Naeba Shokudo produced some of the most memorable moments, and EKD’s show was one of them.

Photo by Julen Esteban-Pretel. More here.

The running joke on the Fujirocker bus home was that the Chemical Brothers were checking their emails on stage. It seemed pretty likely that the set was programmed into their laptops and they were just tweaking here and there.

In the old days, we knew what a DJ was. They put records on record players and fiddled with faders. These days it’s not so clear.

DJ-Numark had his decks, but he was using them just for scratching as far as I could tell. He had some samplers, but the majority of his set was just playing of its own accord. Even legendary turntablists have given up on the old style of six decks and lightning fast cueing. Somewhere in the world there must be kids that mastered the old-school art of turntablism just as it became redundant. Future DMC World Championships will consist of people sending in MP3 files and receiving pass or fail notifications six weeks later.

So the next question is: does it matter? People were clearly enjoying the Chemical Brothers’ set. And Nu-Mark’s show was, as the Americans say, pretty awesome.

It went from Adele to Stevie Wonder via Japanese rap trio Schaddarappa, all backed by quick switching modern hip-hop beats and topped with the man’s first-rate scratching.

He’d come on after Soil & “Pimp” Sessions, and saw his set begin with the predictable exodus that marks any changeover from live band to DJ. About 20 minutes later the Marquee was heaving again. Presumably his tunes had wafted out from the Red Marquee and persuaded people to stop stuffing their gobs with kebabs and come in for a dance.

But was it DJing? I think Nu-Mark’s style is, but perhaps the Chemical Brothers’ style isn’t. If you’re performing in front of me, I’d like you to work a bit. For Nu-Mark, it’s about scratching, switching beats and adding effects that really work (not just banging your funble fingers on a Kaoss pad).

The guy standing next to me was a DJ Shadow fanatic who would cut off one of his hands to spend 5 minutes with the guy. He turned to me and said “this is better than Brainfreeze.” I thought so too.

Pic by 近澤幸司 more here

Soil & “Pimp” Sessions are arguably the best thing that’s happened to jazz music in the last 10 years. I say “arguably” but I’ll brook no arguments. Their debut album “Pimpin” showed that jazz didn’t have to be played in musty clubs to ponderous wankers. You could turn up at the Fuji Rock Festival and blow people’s minds.

The first time they Soils played Fuji Rock they were unsigned. That’s not that long ago, but it seems like forever.

“Shacho”, the “agitator”, still looks like pimping genuinely might be his other job, and he’s owning the stage as though he’s been at this for decades. This is a once in a lifetime event, he tells us.

There’s a drum solo. Ordinarily I’m not a fan of drum solos. You’re the pulse, not the mouth, but drummer Midorin launched into an insane beat crescendo that didn’t seem possible with only two hands and two feet. And thenit popped straight into pure party jazz. They call it “death jazz”. I think that means there’s some rock in their jazz.

Last time, the Pimps played the Orange Court in the early evening. It worked a lot better this time, with the roof on and a hard dance floor. Hundreds of hands were in the air. This was one big dance party to finish the festival.

Photos by 近澤幸司 more here

The Tokyo Fashion blog has some great pics from Fuji Rock Festival ‘11.

Click here to have a look

I had a friend who came over to Japan from Australia to go to Fuji Rock and after a day there she said to me that one of the biggest differences between this festival and the ones she had been to overseas were that so many of the attendees were just so hip and fashion conscious. Generally speaking I think that the Japanese are the most fashionable people on earth but there is something about Fuji Rock that seems to attract the most imaginative and unique dressers from all over the country. The big theme this year for the girls seemed to be floral head bands. Also, I think that many of the outdoor apparel brands have realized that lots of their clothes get used at outdoor music festivals so they have really added some funky designs and colors to their rainwear. The sounds at Fuji are always amazing but there is also so much to keep the visual centers of your brain buzzing with stimulation too. For more photos see below.

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The food court behind the back entrance to the Red Marquee is always a great place to eat, drink and hang out in between acts. This year I noticed they also had a killer DJ playing lots of 70’s funk and reggae, which is right down my alley. I was lucky enough on the very first night to discover a place that primarily sells Chinese food but also wonderful cocktails. What caught my eye was their Mango juiced based drinks, something you rarely see in Japan. All it took was one taste of their rum and mango juice and I was hooked. At the end of a hard days writing for fujirock.com, there was no better place than here to enjoy a drink. The staff there too were incredibly friendly, asking my name and actually remembering it every time I came back. More…

It seems like I am not the only one who thought these sausage sandwiches at the Russian food tent in the Orange Court were delectable. While I was browsing through the Japanese counterpart to this English site today, I noticed that one of the Japanese writers had also devoured one of these bad boys and been as equally as impressed. Seeing as this sausage was being sold at a Russian food stand, I guess that the translation of the Japanese katakana name was “kielbasa,” which seems to be a thick sausage common in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. Anyway, this was the best food I ate at Fuji Rock and if you see this stall at the festival, please try one of these. Not only was the sausage amazing but there was a perfectly balanced spicy mayonaise sauce to go with it. More…

I think most people party pretty hard at Fuji Rock, so finding a place to get the caffeine fix you need to jolt you out of a hangover is an essential thing at the festival. I was lucky enough to discover Lotus Cafe, located right in the middle section of the stalls at Field of Heaven, the first time I came to Fuji and I have been going back there ever since. Everything about the place is fantastic. It has seats, tables, cool clothes, friendly staff and the finest coffee on the site. The owner of the stall is Maki and you often see him relaxing in the back of the tent, tenderly hand roasting the coffee beans to ensure the ultimate freshness. I had a quick chat to him and he said that his stall has been at Fuji right from the very first time it was held. He doesn’t have a shop but sells coffee beans he roasts to other shops in and around his home town of Nishi Oshi in Aichi prefecture. His daughter gets in on the act too, hand baking delicious brownies that go perfectly with a freshly brewed cup. At the moment, you cannot buy his beans online but he is planning to start selling them some time soon at this site.

Sunday, just before 6pm at Gypsy Avalon. Actually, 5,50pm to be exact, and not at Gypsy Avalon but somewhere behind it at Atomic Cafe. There I was, drinking some herbal tea (they had run out of coffee – yeah, I couldn’t believe it either!) when suddenly something drew my attention to the Avalon area. Something beautiful. Something magical.

It was at this point I realised Silverbus was on stage and it wasn’t for a sound check. I rushed (well, okay, waded slowly because I was not in the mood for a wipe out) down to the Gypsy stage and prepared to squeeze myself into the crowd.

I arrived and slipped into place at front center, with a perfect view of the stage and no one in front of me. And yet, I was about 4 meters back. I looked behind me and saw people sparsely scattered about. Obviously enjoying the show, but… for what I was witnessing on stage, it seemed wrong, unfair.

Silverbus describe themselves as “indie-pop, post-rock, quiet intensity, shoegazers”. The last one couldn’t be more fitting, and although shoegazers occasionally frustrate me, with their music, it fits. Mellow tunes that vary in strength and intensity, occasionally accompanied by Foo’s tender voice draw you in and keep your attention locked on them until they tell you they’re done.

I’m not usually a big fan of fully instrumental songs because I need a voice to keep me focused, but with Silverbus there was no such feeling. I even kept my iPhone safely stuck in my pocket (I usually take notes on it during the show) because I couldn’t pull myself away from just listening/watching. I was quite honestly blown away.

If you want to know more, then check out their website where they’ve posted their first full length album for you to listen to. May I suggest that you do so wearing headphones and sit in a dark room for full effect

“Hope our music can touch people’s hearts as the process we make it.” – Foo, lead vocals.

They touched mine, I hope they touch yours too.

Photo by: 横山正人

For more Silverbus photos, click here.

On Saturday morning I walked by the “Japannize Style Handmade Hamburger Shop” that was located near the wristband pickup area.  When I saw their sign boasting that they made “Fuckin’ Yummy Hamburger!!” I knew that I had to try one at some point during the fest.

Feeling a little hungry late Sunday night, I decided to swing by the stand on my way to the Palace of Wonder.  Man, am I ever glad I did.  For 500 yen, I was served up a good-sized burger with cheese, egg, and bacon.  The cook used a mini blow torch to melt the shredded cheese on top of the burger.  How badass is that!

Sticking true to their word, the burger was pretty f#ckin’ yummy.  So much so that I ordered another one after stumbling out of the Palace of Wonder sometime after 6 am on Monday morn.  The second one was even better than the first!

The last act on the last night at the festival at the main stage, The Music had some serious pressure on them to put on a good show. This is after all a rock festival, so what better way to finish it off than with a heavy rock band. Listening to their bass and guitar interplay and seeing vocalist Robert Harvey’s singing style, I was at times reminded of pioneering bands also from the UK like Led Zepplin.  In between songs he repeatedly emphasized his appreciation of the Japanese fans, saying how much he loved them all. Japan, if not Fuji Rock, was in fact one of the places responsible for the band’s success and they have had a steady fan base here, ever since playing at the Red Marquee even before the release of their first album in 2002. It is amazing to think that this festival could help bring so much success to a young band who started playing while they were in high school in 1999.

To show that appreciation in a little more physical way, towards the end of the set Robert asked the reluctant security staff if he could go down with the audience. Although they didn’t allow him to surf the crowd he was permitted to thrash around a bit with the hoards of people packed in at the front of the stage. Thanks to the excellent giant video screens, even those of us standing way back on the hill were able to see his rock star dance moves. They finished the show with an epic tune from their first album which they said they remembered the crowd back in 2002 loving. What an end to the glorious Fuji Rock festival.

Photo 佐俣美幸. More images here.

I’ll make this brief. Imagine it’s the apocalypse, but not in that four-horsemen, fire-and-devastation way, but the way you’d actually like the world to end. Something a bit euphoric and exciting. The soundtrack would be Wildbirds and Peace drums. Or, in a nutshell:

Drums: ✔
Steel pans: ✔
Guitars: ✘
Performers: ✔ ✔
Melodic: ✔
Soaring: ✔
Danceable: ✘
Same as everything else: ✘
Crowd: ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Good: ✔

For my last vibe piece of 2011’s fantastic Fuji Rock Festival, I thought I would let the people speak. So, packing up in the campground, I asked a slew of campers and a few staff a simple question, “What was the best thing about Fuji Rock this year?”
I knew people would say, Chemical Brothers, Coldplay and Thai food, but some other responses surprised me, made me laugh, made me think, and made me already nostalgic for something that may have just happened yesterday!
So, with no further ado, here is a small sampling of some Fuji rockers favorite top memories of the fest:
- Wilco
- Chemical Brothers
- Fireworks during Coldplay
- Onigiri
- Pole dance
- a flat tent space
- Heineken
- Hanaregumi
- Many kids babble, I’m play too (???)
- Enjoy bike (dude rode a hog to the fest from who knows where)
- “Minna de pa-ti” (Everyone partying)
- “Dai shizen” (Big nature)
- the girls
- the recycling
- “Ame” (the rain)
- frog caps
- made up with my girlfriend (congrats!)
- so many artist positive vibes to Japan, Tohoku
- frog caps (yes, again)
- Mot playing Rookie A-GoGo stage
- Tom Yum Ramen
- Hanggai throat singing in the forest
- Bacon on a stick and Rum Chai for breakfast
- Crystal Palace mosh pit for Manu Chao and the way the whole crowd embraced my hairy naked chest (!)
- hanging out with Manu Chao backstage (jealous)
- Yummy fuckin’ hamburgers (mmm…also good for breakfast)

So maybe that rekindles a special memory for you, maybe you salivate a little, maybe you wonder how the hell to get backstage to hang out with Manu Chao (staff secrets). Any way you cut it, I am sure you have your own laundry list of hilarious, momentous, audacious and wonderful experiences to take with you and tell stories about for years to come. Maybe you recycle more. Maybe you buy a CD of your new favorite Japanese artist, maybe you quit wearing shoes.
So, remember what you learned, reminisce about what you miss, and I’ll see you next year. ☺

Let me tell you how I got into country music. I was at Glastonbury. It was the second night. I went back to crawl into my tent, but some twat had stolen it.

The only place to rest was a giant tent hosted by some Christian group, but you know how Christians are. They offer you a bed, then keep yapping about a chap from donkey’s years ago who got murdered for my benefit, in line with some rules his dad had invented. Sometimes the dad or son will talk to you inside your head, but only in your head. It all sounded a bit fishy to me, and they didn’t let me sleep, so the next night I decided to just go home. Screw the festival and everyone in it.

I was walking to the exit in a foul mood, when suddenly I heard the voice of God. No, just kidding, it was Johnny Cash. It was the greatest voice I’d ever heard. I turned around and listened to the rest of his set. I got so into country music that I went to Nashville and got a job in a cheesy Grand Ol’ Opry theme park. Sadly, in Nashville they only like the rubbish modern country music. If you say you like Hank Williams, they ask which one.

So that’s how I came to skip YMO in favor of the Kensington Hillbillies. I’d also bumped into them earlier and they promised to play “Cocaine Blues”, which is just about the best country music song for a festival. It’s also a good moral lesson for the kids, teaching them that it’s bad to snort cocaine and shoot your girlfriend.

So it’s early Sunday evening and the Hillbillies should have no people at all watching them. Kazuyoshi Saito is on the White Stage, YMO are on the Green Stage, and this is the third set this weekend from the country canucks. But there’s a decent crowd of people.

The Hillbillies come on and play a trio of Hank Williams tunes. Then they play one of their own tunes, and it’s actually better than the first three (to be fair to Mr Williams, they didn’t play the songs his way). Anyway, they prove that a bunch of boys from Toronto can write country every bit as well as some grizzly old sod from Tennessee. There’s a blatant Johnny Cash riff in there, but I think it’s deliberate.

Next they play a tune by that classic country band The Clash. It’s “Straight To Hell”. The singer sounds like Bob Dylan when he sings it. That’s neither a criticism nor a compliment. It’s just an observation.
And then, well, they still aren’t playing Cocaine Blues. Have they forgotten? Did they decide not to let some random pot-bellied white boy help them with their set list?

Time’s moving on.

“We’ve got two more songs for you,” says the singer. Yes? Come ON! “This one’s from our latest album.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s quite good, but it’s not what I ordered.

And so to the last song. All or nothing now. Play Cocaine Blues or I’ll rip you mercilessly in the review.
“Da dong-dong dong-dong dong-dong dong-dong dong dong dong dong, early one morning while makin’ the rounds, I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down…”

Nice. And let’s have more country music at Fuji Rock.