moriarty
Imagine the moonwalk, but sideways. That’s the dance of the guitarist from Moriarty. It looks like his legs are made of rubber, and he’s doing the OK Go video for Here It Goes Again without the treadmill. That’s the single greatest dance move I’ve ever seen, and gave me a kind of male crush.
The other stunning thing about Moriarty is the singer’s voice. It reminded me of Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star. If there were trophies for Fuji Rock, she’d own the Best Singer cup. That’s an idea that Smash might like to consider. For the finale each Sunday night, they could present cups to the best guitarist (Vato Negro I suppose) and drummer (the bloke behind John Fogerty) and dancer (see above). And Mrs Moriarty for best singer. Haunting. That’s a cheesy, obvious word, but her voice was haunting.
The first tune I heard when i turned up late was a country tune about buffalo roaming. I love country music. Even songs about buffalo roaming. From French people. I wonder how you can grow up in France and end up singing songs about buffalo. They also sing a song called “I want a robot”, which wasn’t very country, but did have a chorus that involved the crowd yelling “roboto hoshi” back. I assume this wasn’t written in Japanese, but surely not every language has words that fit.
Moriarty made the most effort to speak in Japanese. They’d memorized a surprising amount, and had sheets with notes on for the rest. The crowd was loving it.
Musically, Moriarty go uptempo, with the guitarist rocking out, and they go super mellow, which suits the singer, but it’s the straight country stuff that tickled me.