Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

It didn’t take long. When Soul Flower Union took the stage on the festival’s first day just before 1pm, frontman Takashi Nakagawa was wearing a t-shirt that read “Nuclear Power? No Thanks!” with the words in the shape of a hippied up skull. He wasn’t preachy or prosletyzing, but the statement was there. Then about an hour later and just up the hill at Gypsy Avalon, Taiwanese folk singer Lin Sheng-xiang also took up the “no nuke” cry (more here).

SFU’s set, incidentally, was a blast. Their music is a strange and probably unchartable fusion of ska, ska-punk, Grateful Dead-style hippie music and various local Japanese strains, and their weird bent for Celtic rhythms, marches and fight songs leaves no wonder that they are often called The Pogues of Japan. But if all this music has one thing in common, it’s all happy. A devoted following was dancing and singing along with their hands in the air. It was a great way to start the festival.