Fujirockers: The official Fuji Rock Festival blog

If I line up this long, there’d better be an oven-baked pizza at the end of it, not some kid in a Scream mask shouting “boo!”.

Did anyone make it inside? What was it all about?

Best voice: Moriarty's Rosemary

Best shows
Ozomatli
John Fogerty
Rustic Pans

Best voice
Moriarty

Worst voice
Ian Brown

Best new thing
The hammocks

Worst new thing
Getting eaten by vampire forest beasties, probably while sleeping in the hammocks

Biggest disappointment
Hearing that Matt & Kim canceled the Naeba Shokudo show because they didn’t like the look of the stage.

Best food
The red tomato curry

Best drink
Atsukan sake at the tokoro tengoku

Worst drink
Hot rum coffee at the tokoro tengoku

Weirdest celebrity sighting
James Murphy at 5am, shirtless, bragging about how fat he is

Lessons learned
Wellies. Not sandals.
And insect repellent.

So, to recap: MGMT made an album that everybody loved, even the president of France. “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” were the two monster tunes, but the rest was pretty likeable.

Then they made Congratulations, a follow-up that some thought was made deliberately to piss everyone off. I loved it, but then I’ve always loved Love’s “Forever Changes”, which was exactly the same album. To add insult to injury, MGMT have been playing shows recently without playing “Kids”, confirming that they’re just being spiteful.
So any MGMT gig review has to be about how they blend “Oracular Spectacular” and “Forever Changes” into a single show, and whether or not they’re still being bastards and refusing to play the songs we all want to hear.

So, in a nutshell, they played “Time to Pretend”, they played Kids, and they played a lot of their second album and it all blended perfectly well into a psychedelicy spectacular that thrilled the packed White Stage. It seems like I’m not the only one that likes their second album.

Hits ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Other bits ★ ★ ★ ★
Saturday nightness ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Bit late in reporting this, but well, you know how festivals are.

Trombone Shorty, ex-Kravitz brass man, followed up his Orange Court main gig with a show at the diminutive Crystal Palace. He played one of those short trombones without the slide; you may know it as a trumpet, but still wheeled through the tracks on his new “Backatown” album. I’ve always liked the sound of the trumpet more, so this was a chance to hear the album with extra wallop.

He’s got a whopping 8 members onstage here. Sure, 8 isn’t whopping for a brass band, but it looks pretty cosy on this stage.

Trumpet Shorty plays a funky version of “Let’s Stay Together”, followed by a storming “On Your Way Down” without the help of Allen Toussaint, who appears on the album, and sings “Something Beautiful”, the track that had Kravitz’s voice on the record. Judging from these performances, Trumpet could have saved himself a few dollars and done the whole thing himself.

About halfway through the set, Angelo Moore of Fishbone pops in to take over vocals, leaving Trumpet to stand at the back. Surprise VIP appearances are fun, but, well, I can’t even remember what the difference was.

Fun ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Funk ★ ★ ★ ★
Palace of Wonderness ★ ★ ★ ★

So Ozomatli played a storming show at the Field of Heaven, and had to do it all again 9 hours later in the much smaller Crystal Palace spiegeltent. Every year the Palace seems to have one act that tears the place to pieces, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Ozomatli would be the one this year. So the two questions were:

* Could they top their first show?
* Could they top Rafven and Gogol Bordello’s madness of previous years

The quick answers: yes, and maybe.

They were more playful than earlier in the afternoon. At one point, Ulises makes a gesture with his finger and thumb to his lips. He then gets a sax solo, so the gesture must have been the reed to his mouth. Then the band join in and it’s “Pass The Duchie”. Probably wasn’t a reed gesture then. In quick succession, “Pass the Duchie” becomes “Top of the World”, “Pass the Duchie” again, “Strawberry Fields” and back to Musical Youth, all with a sound halfway between reggae and traditional Ozomatli.

From the new album, there was “45″, “Elysian Persuasion” and “Malagasy Shock”. The latter is clearly the one that’s set to become an Ozo live favourite.

What’s most amazing about this show is that they steered clear of most of the giant hits and live signatures, but had the crowd revved up as much as ever. With this band it’s not about which songs they play – they know exactly how to whip up an audience and they’ve got 5 strong album’s worth of music to mine.

When the music stopped, we waited for the encore, but it never came. This ain’t Woodstock. Ozo didn’t even get to take their instruments into the crowd, and I suspect it wasn’t their choice.

Would you? No, me neither.

Last night, one of the deadly wheelers dropped his juggling clubs. It strikes me that it’s not good to make mistakes in a job such as his.

Rory Mcleod played the Mokudotei today – that fun little stage in the woodlands. It was like being at his house as he sang story songs, and prefaced all his story songs with stories about what the story songs were about. As you spend time at Fuji Rock and see the crowd respond to “Yo FUUUJIII, are you enjoying yourselves?”, it’s easy to think that people pick up most of the chat, but I’d wager that most of it was lost on the people here. Rory told us about Pauline, a girl he went to school with, before beginning a tune about Pauline, the girl he went to school with.

Without a doubt, it didn’t matter than nobody knew what he was saying. Half the time, Rory didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. He’d begin a story, go off at a tangent, then end with “well, anyway, let’s see how we go.”

At one point, Rory borrows a water bottle from one listener and pretends it’s a telephone and he’s talking to his mum. That sounds crap on paper, but it’s charming in real life. He plays little gags with his harmonica, and then every so often he thumps out a danceable folk song that one moment is about Pauline, and the next moment about the odds against him being alive being the exact number of his dad’s sperm that didn’t make it to the finishing line.
On the one hand, I can’t imagine anyone better for this stage than Rory McLeod. He held the crowd just by tapping his foot and blowing his unplugged harmonica. On the other hand, if people had space to dance, they surely would have. I didn’t catch any of his other sets here, but I bet there was some stomping going on. Hope he’s back soon.

Rory ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Stories ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Glory ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

There are some evil little beasties at this festival that suck blood from you and leave you with a grapefruit-sized swelling. The medics translated the name as “gnat”, but these things are no gnats. They’re some kind of super-strength vampire flies. And when they coordinate an attack by biting you all around the ankle, it also cripples you. I had to hobble to see Ozomatli, limping like I was wounded in some war. I wondered if I’d be able to stand through the whole set.

It took 3 or 4 seconds of the show before I was jumping around. They opened with “Ya Viene”, and played it even more furiously than usual. The crowd was bouncing and so was I. Anything less would have been letting the vampire flies win.

The first sign of the new album was “Malagassay Shock”, another big party tune to get the crowd romping.

On a tangent, I’ve heard Muse described as the best live band in the world. I saw them two days ago and it was just some blokes on a stage with lasers. Ozomatli are the best live band in the world. They take up the whole stage, they throw instruments at each other whether or not they need to. They don’t let the set go for two songs before pulling out something to get you jumping to. And they have crowd interaction that nobody comes close to.

The only foot Ozomatli ever put wrong was to get Jack Johnson singing a song about how being rich doesn’t necessarily make you an arsehole. J-Lo already wrote a song about that, and we didn’t believe her either. Jack’s not here today, but we still get the tune, with Raul and Asdrubal on vocals. At least it’s more uptempo here.

Raul, the shaven-headed guitarist-singer, then decides to rock out, going all metal on us as the rest of the band make devil-horn fingers. There’s a time and a place for rock guitar solos, and this seems like both. It fits the moment and the crowd loves it.

Next up, “Nada For Free”, from the new album. It’s a great party tune, and likely to be repeated tonight at the Crystal Palace. It also sounds like it was written for Biz Markie, with bouncy rap about a girl kicking you in the nuts. We get a stripped-down, heavier take on “Saturday Night”. Rapper Justin starts surfing the crowd as a taster for what’s to come. Ozomatli, as always, end the set by taking their instruments into the crowd and jamming. How are they going to top that tonight?

Beardyman + Tucker was one of my must-see gigs. Livewire organ grinder Tucker blew the crowd away a couple of years ago in a solo set at Fuji Rock, and Beardyman has already played two acclaimed sets here, both of which I missed. Seeing the two together (how on Earth did that happen) may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
It turns out it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, because if they play together again, I probably won’t bother going. It’s not that either of them was bad, but Beardyman is the human beatbox for whom the term human beatbox seems a little weak as a description. He turns out jazz, blues, breaks, techno and everything else with his vocal chords. Adding a real musician meant it wasn’t always possible to tell who was doing what (the best way to guess was that Beardyman’s mic was too low, so the loud stuff was probably Tucker). So without the “wow, he’s doing that with his voice?” factor, you have to judge the set purely on musical terms. And it was alright. Not something you’d go out of your way for. Bluesy in places, funky in places, and housey elsewhere, but none of it would stand as great examples of any genre.
NB. I was completely knackered when I caught the gig, with my legs about to buckle and my eyes half shut, so the show may well have been blinding. When all you wanna do is sleep, nothing’s gonna sound great.

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis are, of course, named after the members of the band, but if we’re being pedantic it should be Kitty, Daisy, Lewis and Mum & Dad, because it’s the mum on double bass and the dad on guitar.
All the while I’m watching them, I can’t help thinking of how people stress about Facebook invites from their parents, but K, D and L were asked to form a band with their olds. And they said “yes”.
I watched Kitty, Daisy, Lewis and Mum & Dad last night at the Crystal Palace. Or to give them their full name, “Kitty, Daisy, Lewis and Mum & Dad and Mum & Dad’s friend Eddie on Trumpet”. It was a great show, and Lewis later told me that he loved playing speigeltents, but I enjoyed their Field set today more. It’s not easy to explain why, but though the music is old-time perfect for the spiegeltent, it was more fun in the open air. If you looked around, the staff at most of the food stands was jiving and grinning.
In the course of the show, the kids played guitars, a ukelele, drums and an accordian, which suggests that although these parents seem like the best parents on Earth, they’re probably hard-tasking, whip-cracking, autocratic bastards. Be thankful that your old folks just watch TV all day and can’t remember what you do for a living.
PS. Since this is supposed to be a music review rather than a family appraisal: they played rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll and a bit of Hawaiian music. All good. Read Jinki’s review of last night. It was like that but with more air.

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.

I just met Ozomatli for a quick chat, and after hearing about the legendary Gogol Bordello show at the Crystal Palace a few years back, Ulises Bella says “we’re about to blow that out. Now we know that we’ve got to step it up.”

Later on, while a TV screen was playing a feed of another band onstage, Jiro Yamaguchi shakes his head and says “look at all the people they’ve got, and that’s all they’re doing. Man, if we were up there – bam!”

They’ve recently played to 10,000 people in Kathmandu, and 20,000 people in Ulan Bator, so the Crystal Palace is going to be a big change of vibe. I’m expecting the festival’s best show. Be there.

The Fujirocker chief carefully plans a schedule for the bloggers, sending us all around the festival, making sure we cover most of the bands and see the acts we like. I was scheduled for La Ruda at the Orange Court, but accidentally went in the wrong direction and watched John Fogerty instead. When I got there, I found the rest of the team, presumably doing much the same. I’m posting this picture by way of grassing up all the beardy weirdies that I have to work with to show it wasn’t just me neglecting my duties.

If you want to know what Fogerty was like, look for Phil’s report later. But for me, this was the gig of the festival so far. Fogerty is that kind of legend that adds an extra dimension to a show just by standing there. His banter to the crowd, which amounted to saying “How y’all doing” three times, is perfectly OK here because we just want him to play. This is a man with SO many massive songs to his name that you’re not hanging out for that one big hit (see MGMT later) but knowing that every tune might be a monster. All of which only goes to prove how clever I am for telling fellow Fujirocker Jeff that Proud Mary was certain to be the set closer, which it was. I’m burning hot with predictions this weekend. It’s one of my favourite tunes ever, though that’s partly because Ike & Tina Turner an insanely good version of it, but hearing it from Fogerty was magical. The guy must be about 260 years old by now, but he doesn’t look it or sing like it, and he’s outdone every young punk I saw so far this weekend. This was one of those gigs I won’t forget.

La Ruda were probably great too. If you were there, post your review in the comments please.

Big tunes: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Hillbillies in plaid shirts: ★ ★
Dance in the mud ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Last night at Vegas in Milk I bet on 17, and it came up 17. And I bet black and it came up black. And I bet the middle column, and it came up middle column. These are the chips left after cashing out $5,000. I’ll be there tonight again to show y’all how to do it.

It’s that bloke from Big Willie’s Burlesque. He’s at the Crystal Palace every year – as far as I know, the only live act to play every year. This year he’s also at Cabaret Fiesta.
A couple of hours earlier I watched Rustic Pans at the Fiesta and they tore the place to pieces. Willie has more trouble. He keeps asking if anyone would like to dance, but it takes half the set before anyone does. It’s partly because it’s pelting with rain and half his audience is here for shelter (which becomes painfully obvious as soon as the rain stops). But it’s also because William sets the bar for dancing way too high with his scantily clad ladies that wiggle their bottoms and boobs. I must say at this point that I disapprove of the exploitation of women for sexual thrills. Ha, just kidding, it’s fine. Linda comes out and wiggles everything she has, and there was probably some music playing but I didn’t much notice. She’s dancing in stilletos, which I think is a breach of health and safety in the workplace regulations. Then Linda leaves, Willie asks for a round of applause and gets a cacophonous clapping. He then asks for the same for the singer/timbales guy, Luka, and he gets a noticeably more muted clapping. It’s clear that this crowd love boobs more than top-grade Cuban jazz.
When the ladies are off, we can hear the music again, and it’s tight as tight could be. If this were a jazz club, we’d all be on our feet. But somehow it’s the wrong place and wrong time of day for this music, and the most Willie ever manages is four members of the crowd on their feet. For anyone that saw the Rustic Pans gig earlier, the contrast is stunning. I’m pretty sure William and co will fare better at the Palace later this weekend.

Cuban ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Dancing (onstage) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Dancing (offstage) ★

It’s easy to think of night Fuji as Red Marquee vs Crystal Palace vs Orange Court, but there’s one more choice – the films. Here’s who turned out to see whatever the film was. I spotted Kiyoshiro Imawano on screen, so maybe it was a tribute to him. And the ところ天国 bar was still open, so for those with chairs, it’s a nice way to see in the sunlight.

Um, this won’t please the hippy contingent, but after dark at the White Stage looks like this. Yes, they keep the light blaring, and zooming around, until at least 3am when I took this. Blimey. Hate to see Smash’s electricity bill. Probably this isn’t that biggest lump of that, but still.

t Yo. While you’re moaning about a hangover tomorrow morning, this is what the A-Seed people have to wake up to. And these are the bins next to the kids stage. Bloody kids and their drinking.

Yes, fella, this is what you died for. Cabaret Fiesta Cuban tent at Fuji Rock.

All you need to know about this trio is that they packed the Gypsy Avalon stage tighter than I’ve ever seen it. See the picture. And if the singer was an octave higher, only dogs would be able to appreciate it.
There’s a guitar, a bass and a set of tom-toms. I can rarely understand Japanese when it’s sung, but I assume the songs were something like “I liked a boy and he liked me, so everything was quite alright” or “It’s sunny, we’re happy, but even if it were raining we’d still be happy because then the flowers could grow”.
At one point, the three ladies take a break to let the audience pose questions. I think this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed a Q&A session mid-gig. “Have you taken a onsen up here yet?” shouts an audience member. “No, not yet,” say the ladies. Back to the music.
After the next tune, which may have been about how delicious ice-cream is, the bass player points out that an insect has landed on the guitar, and the trio discuss whether to let it stay there, or to remove it. Before they can reach a consensus, said insect departs voluntarily, and we all go back to the songs about sunshine and joy.

If, like me, you don’t eat beasties, Fuji Rock has always offered slim picking for dinner. This year, as far as I’ve seen, there are no veggie samosas in the food court, which makes it even worse. But it’s not all pizza, pizza, pizza. Here’s a veggie don with onsen tamago in the Field of Avalon – that hippy one where they massage you and talk about peace.

As soon as the roadies started tuning up I knew this would be a great show. I’d never heard of the band(s) before, but you know how an odd name can grab your attention (and vice versa – it took me a very long time before I checked out Vampire Weekend simply because they sounded like a Rocky Horror tribute act).
Anyway Conguero Whatnot’s roadies were so enthusiastic about their job that I genuinely thought the main show had started. In fact, I’d noted that the band should learn to make more of an entrance, since the show just seemed to peter in. There was a guy dancing on what appeared to be a board of wood with mics, and half a dozen others, putting together a tight soul-jazz sound. Then they took off and I thought “cheeky bastards – that was only about 20 minutes”.
The Conguero Etc came on. I’m not sure if they knew it or not, but their first tune was Stairway to Heaven, only nu-jazz style, with Japanese lyrics.
The second tune was a soul-jazz groove that very nearly had me out of my chair.
The third began with some wah wah funk and I was up dancing.
The real band also had a guy jumping about on a plank. Possibly the same guy that the roadies had. He was dancing furiously, but each time his feet landed, he made a beat. To keep this going, even doing breakbeats by jumping, is mind-boggling and very cool to watch. It reminded me of those A-Seed guys near the entrance pedaling bicycles to power a speaker – only much better, obviously.

Roadies ★ ★ ★ ★
Band ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Seatability ★ ★ ★

I decided to take the boardwalk to the Cabaret Fiesta stage, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The Narasirato Pan Pipers were about to start, and they must have picked up some fans with their Thursday night set at the Red Marquee, because the path was gridlocked. At times like these, I’d usually take it as a sign from the God of music festivals and stay to watch the act I’m gridlocked in front of, but the schedule said I had to watch Rustic Pans, so I pressed on, and I made the right choice.
The Rustic Pans are a six-piece that claim to play Cuban music, but that’s clearly only because they’ve been put at the tent sorta sponsored by Havana Club and subtitled “Havana Nights”. Clearly this is Trinidadian. Sorta. The Rustics play the steel drums with a broader range than you’ll probably hear in the Caribbean. There’s only so much range you can get from a 6-piece where 5 of you play steel drums, but they get right to the edges of that range.
But enough of the music. One of the guys looks like Ozzy Osbourne on lots of uppers. He’s got the same face (Ozzy from the ‘70s) but he grins broader than I’ve ever seen a grin. By his side is a guy who is probably about 4’ 5”, and looks like the baddie in a Scarface knockoff. I’m pretty sure all these guys would get no women if they weren’t in a band. I’m not so sure they get any women even being in a band.
They’re all wearing matching Hawaiian shirts, which won’t help their women situation either.
Every so often, Osbourne pulls out a toy cap gun and fires it in time with the music. Sometimes it jams, but he just grins and fixes it and fires again. The band like to do a crescendo thing where they start with their faces beneath the pans and rise up with the music. When Ozzie’s face appears, he’s grinning the biggest grin.
A Japanese guy next to me turns round and says “I think THIS is Fuji Rock.” I think so too. Best band so far, and they’re not playing again. You had your chance.

Groove ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Cuban ★
Seatability

If the meteorologists are right, we’re in for a wet one:

Keep your eye on things here.

Ozomatli

I loved Phil’s idea to watch the band rated lowest on Pitchfork. It reminded me of my very first editor and the first time he asked me to write a movie review. It went roughly like this:

Him: (Handing me a videotape in a plan white case): “Can you knock out a review of this tonight?”

Me: “Sorry, I’ve got no time to watch it tonight.”

Him: “I asked you to review it, not watch it.”

Me: “I don’t even know what it’s about.”

Him: “It says on the box, it’s called ‘Lionheart’. It’s either about Richard the Lionheart or some brave geezer. Just say the acting was wooden, the plot predictable and make a pun about bravery. And give it one star. People like reviews that slag something off.”

So I did. And that piece of advice stuck with me, along with his lessons about how to doctor pictures to match what you wrote or believe. And in the spirit of enjoying the bad reviews, here are the acts I’m excited about, complete with their best (worst) review on Amazon: Continue Reading…