Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

Just a few days into January, a BBC poll of music critics and industry insiders boldly announced Haim, a Los Angeles trio of sisters, were this year’s distinctive sound or “it band.”  It was a bold vote as Haim have just one EP and one single, “Falling,” though insiders are betting this sound will soon drift into every night club, radio, and TV set around the world.

Honestly, Haim was a pretty easy choice as the five other bands at the top of the list were also all female or female fronted (Aluna George, CHVRCHES). Haim also draw heavily from Fleetwood Mac who have already influenced a score of recent US indie acts like Fleet Foxes and Best Coast, with the distinctive 70’s sound just beginning to infiltrate the UK. They also simply sound like summer, a strong draw when there’s snow on the ground in early January.

The question is will Haim live up to all this UK hype? Continue Reading…

It’s been two weeks since the last Fuji Rock announcement … which means it’s now time for a bunch of more performers to be added to this summer’s lineup! Smash revealed a dozen more acts a few minutes ago including Jamie XX, Namba69 (which features Hi-Standard bassist Akihiro Namba), and the increasingly buzzzzzzzed about post-punk band Savages.

There’s been 104 acts announced for this year’s fest so far, which means that there are still around 100 more bands to be added! Expect more names to come out in around two weeks time. And in the meantime, check out the full list of new additions along with the day they’ll be playing on after the jump! Continue Reading…

Children have a lot to learn: hard work, empathy, reading, writing … you get the idea. And there are many lessons we parents must bestow on them — the kind of ideas kids need to make the transformation into adulthood. I believe one of the most important of these is that, despite what the Beatles may have claimed, many of the best things in life are NOT free. And they aren’t easy, either. Sometimes fun and reward come at a price.

Which brings me to the Asagiri Jam festival. It isn’t free, and while not a Mordoor-sized mountain of adversity, Asagiri isn’t exactly easy, either. It requires a long ride away from the city. It requires hauling your tent and other supplies from a vehicle to a camping area (there are no hotels). It requires preparing clothes for several climates, as at this elevation, the weather can be unpredictable. It requires keeping warm at night.

So sure, this festival requires a little bit of effort. But oh, what a payoff. I consider this to be one of the most kid-friendly music festivals in the country, and judging by the throngs of youth I see running around, I’m not alone. Not only are kids under 10 free, but certain festival features show that families were built into the design: the kids area is large and well-equipped with activities for the younger set, the band selection veers clear of Rock and Hip-Hop’s harsher performers in lieu of a mellower vibe, and, perhaps most importantly, all shows end at 10pm, allowing even those camped near the stages (as we do every year) some peaceful hours of rest. Unlike Fujirock, my first love, Asagiri is a much more manageable size and scale. With only two main stages, you’re never too far away from your tent or a bathroom, and the lines for toilets and food stalls are short enough to get food into small bellies without the histrionics that can accompany youthful impatience.

This year, we arrived as the Oki Dub Ainu band began their set. The mix of aboriginal harmonies over deep bass became the soundtrack to setting up camp. It seems that 9 out of every 10 tents here is a Coleman just like ours, so this year we finally learned our lesson and brought some glow-in-the-dark sticks to decorate the door. Without them, it can be difficult to find your tent after dark. After our gear was set up and I had cracked my first can of the weekend (I bring my own ice chest full of good beer — another perk), we headed for the food stalls: Ethiopian for me, nabe for the wife and cream stew from local cows for the kids.

After our meal and some socializing, we climbed aboard a tractor left out for photo-ops, the sound of Tommy Guerrero’s laid-bad licks as our backdrop. The sun would be setting soon, and we still hadn’t left the main stage! Time for a walk. We wander among the stalls selling toys, clothing and jewelry, then decide to head to the Carnival Star side stage for a little festival serendipity. Just as we arrive, the incredible Japanese band, Asakusa Jinta was setting up on the small stage for an unannounced show. Halfway through the set, I realize how much time has passed: I’m supposed to review Lee Perry, and he starts at the other end of the grounds in less than 30 minutes. If this were Fujirock, I’d never make it, even using staff access roads. But this is Asagiri, man. I take my time. I crack another beer. I grab a few sticks of Indonesian satay and watch a bit of Cut Chemist’s set on the way. By the time I return, the stars are out and two large fires are roaring.

The next morning, we wake to sounds familiar to my 4^th-grade son. “Ichi! Ni! San! Shi!” Someone is onstage leading people in a morning stretch routine. Then as the clouds part and the sun pours in, the John Fahey-like strumming of Takehiko “shake” Kogure streams into the tent with the cool mountain air. After breakfast, coffee and a quick game of Go Fish, the four of us wandered around until my 6-year-old daughter stopped in her tracks. There it was:  the hair salon of her dreams. Several entrepreneurial souls had set up chairs and mirrors on a lookout point. For 500 yen, they would fancy-up your hair with a decorative flower of your choosing. My wife and I don’t encourage our daughter’s girly predilections, but we don’t prohibit them either. There’s no way out of this, but in my opinion it was five hundred yen well spent, if only for the photo opportunities.

Onto the kid’s area for some crafts. Hand-painting pinecones, hammering and nailing wood blocks and kicking a massive ball around the field. The rest of the afternoon was spent eating chocolate bananas and dancing to Osaka Monaurail and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble — both of whom my kids love. By then it was time for an early dinner, but to be honest I don’t think we ever really stopped eating the entire weekend. As the Dirty Projectors played, we had a few rounds of Uno before putting the tent away.

The final, and possibly most spectacular act was Narasirato, the pipers from the Solomon Islands. Their music was amazing  — I’ll admit that the native costumes of their press photos had me expecting some kind of National Geographic-kumbaya-charity-event-new-agey-stuff, but it a full-on house party in there. It also gave us a geography and culture conversation on the ride home. Fun like this requires effort, but the reward is substantial. Asagiri Jam has provided our family with a lot of memories, each one well earned.

Is it possible to slice 6 highlights from 4 days of fun? Yes. Here they are:

The Sun. Ten years from now, long after we’ve forgotten who played this year, 2012 will be known as the year it didn’t rain. The weather was so good that it’s already ruined Fuji Rock 2013, which will see us all turn up with suntan lotion and flip-flops, and spend the weekend sloshing around in mud.

The Stone Roses. Half the audience thought they were awful, half the audience thought they were brilliant. I thought they were brilliant. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. They seemed to be getting along. They played the hits. They didn’t tinker with them too much. They didn’t play Elephant Stone, but otherwise, it was just what we fans were hoping for.

The South Americans. I’d never heard of Onda Vaga or Che Sudaka three months ago. Now I can’t stop listening to their albums. Fuji Rock wouldn’t be Fuji Rock without a discovery or two. These were my two. Incidentally, Che Sudaka are a group of South Americans living in Barcelona. Their name means something like “Hey, South Americans”, which is how their hosts would address them.

No lines. What happened to the lines this year? It was sold out on two of the days, but there were tiny lines for the loos and the pizzas. Were there more loos? Better food options? I’ve no idea, but let’s hope it’s a change that sticks. The only insane line was for the wristband exchange on the Friday night. That can’t be too hard to solve for next year, can it?

Charan Po Lantan. The only show in which the audience spent more time laughing than singing. Check the review.

Echigo Beer. Heineken has their megadeal to bore our tastebuds to death, but a few stalls make the effort to offer something with a bit more body. This year we had Sun Sun, Old Speckled Hen, Tokyo Ale, some Spanish thing… but the winner was Echigo beer at the Naeba Shokudo. Malty, fruity and with real body. Anyone care to raise the stakes next year with some of Niigata’s Swan Lake?

I knew going in that “Best of the Fest” would come down to Sunday’s incredible line-up on the White Stage. The decision was close, but I broke it down to the skinny jeans vs saggy shorts debate.

We all saw many performers performing in jeans so thin and clingy that they might as well have been  spandex. Bands such as Japandroids and Alt-J immediately come to mind, but no one rocked the look more than Dennis Lyxzén of Refused. Onstage, he was a remarkable silhouette, all angular power and emotion, grabbing huge air while jumping off an overturned monitor speaker. You can see the photos and review here.

At the other end of the stylistic spectrum was Fucked Up lead singer Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham, a bear-like presence with little regard for appearances as his modus operandi is direct engagement with the audience. It took him only 2.5 minutes to shed his t-shirt and climbing over the protective barrier to enter the crowd. The effect was striking, and anyone 10 rows deep was soon peering directly into his eyes. At such close distance he was  a Rubensesque figure with a face flushed red with exertion, all done for adoring fans which he high-fived, kissed,and shared the mic with. He even donned their hats, scarves, and sunglasses, and more importantly,  carefully returned them to the rightful owners afterwards. In the end, fittingly a crown of plastic flowers found a place atop his head. Read the review here.

And so my pick goes to Fucked Up for smashing the “fourth wall” a term coined by the French philosopher and critic Denis Diderot to describe the perceived barrier between the audience and the performer. Fuji Rock is quite special it encourages artists to engage with the audience through smaller stages and more opportunities for performance, and herein is the logic behind the rest of my picks for the festival.

Best Stage: Field of Heaven, the whole area is lit to incorporate the audience into the performance. This was especially evident during Steve Kimock’s three-hour set. Read the review here.

Best Tribute: Kensington Hillbillies, 4-day, all Clash tribute to Joe Strummer. I can’t say enough about how good this sounded. Their final set here.

Best Party: Dj Jim “Vinyl” Nasium playing his final set at the Crystal Palace at 5AM. He was rocking the World Court all weekend with his DJ booth but on the final night of the festival with only  a dozen or so strangers joining hands and dancing in a circle, he brought out one final vinyl 45 and put it on the turntable.

As Elliott, my good friend and comrade at fujirock.com wrote, at the festival this year it was hard to talk to anyone without hearing about how much the near-pristine weather made the phenomenal music, dancing, laughing and natural beauty of Naeba just that much more magical. For me it felt incredibly different to walk around on green grass (not mud) and feel the crisp sun and refreshing wind almost completely absent of any rain. Nature, music and good human spirit all coming together for 3 days of unparalleled bliss.

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I don’t want to roll out the clichés, but…how do you choose the best of FujiRock? Every moment of Fuji verges on surreal, because it’s like wandering around an alternate reality from Thursday evening until Monday morning. Real life is a distant memory.

Now I’ll get my hokey behind in gear and actually answer the question: what was the best of Fuji ’12? Here’s the best I can do, given the fact that I’m so fulla love for the whole damn thing:

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Is there any other way to sum up FujiRock’s message?

At one point in the weekend, a couple from Tokyo sat with us at breakfast. They told us this was their ninth year coming to Fuji. I told them that as far as I could tell, this was the best music festival in the world. Naturally, they asked why I felt that way. I had to admit, I hadn’t been to that many festivals internationally – I was largely going on statements I’d heard from others, comparing FujiRock to the likes of Glastonbury and Coachella.

For myself, though, I said that it wasn’t one thing, it was everything. To wit:
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It ain’t much to look at, but I took a picture of this because it struck a chord. Perhaps this is the norm at some festivals, but I myself had never seen something as logical and inclusive as this – a disabled platform in the middle of the Green Stage field. The platform is easily accessible from the asphalt pathways and high enough to provide a few that a person in a wheelchair could never get if they were out on the grassy hills.

Fuji’s a tough haul for a person in need of mobility assistance, what with its rocky paths and hills – its just a fact of nature here at Naeba – but I did see some people in chairs. That Fuji would go out of its way to provide this was awesome.

There was me, that is Jamie, and my two droogs, that is two random Japanese girls, and we sat in the FujiRock pathway trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the afternoon. FujiRock sold Heineken, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence, except at FujiRock, no one was violent, pretty much ever, so instead we just hung out and smiled a lot” – A Clockwork Fuji

With the most tickets sold in several years – Saturday and Sunday one-day tickets sold out, three-day passes the same – it was expected that Fuji would be packed. The laid back vibe of the weekend meant that no one really minded. Line-ups were inevitable and you merely enjoyed the day while waiting for your food. Once again, patience seems to grow wild on the mountainsides. That said…check out the mad length of these food lines!

I don’t know too many people who would say to themselves, “Man! You know what I want to see today? A juggler!” It’s up there with miming in terms of “things you know exist but rarely think about.” Yet buskers like this juggler/tightrope walker/fiddler/comedian tend to be far more entertaining than you’d reasonably expect. This fellow had a chance to entertain Fujigoers in the outskirts by the Café du Paris, and he was kind of awesome. Something about the air at FujiRock makes a person more open to all kinds of performances.

Note the cats pulling on either side of his rope – without these guys keeping the rope taut throughout the performance, the performer would have tumbled to the ground. Yeah, no pressure there.

My fiance, with whom I’ve been travelling, managed to make her way into the Stoned Circle (hah!) and take part in the drum circle. There’s no way for me to actually explain why it isn’t as hippie-ish as it would be in North America. It just…isn’t. Loved this guy, looking ready to…uh…drum.

Also, as an aside: note the towel around his neck. 98% of people wore such towels around their necks. Never would have crossed my mind to bring one, but in this heat, it was a necessity.

FujiRock is one of the friendliest festivals on the planet. There’s no major corporate sponsorship (other than the ubiquitous Heineken signs, you don’t see much) which makes it feel more personable and “real.” People, of course, are having the best time, and everyone is friendly almost all of the time. It’s kind of crazy, compared to the festivals you find in North America – where I’d expect cold, impersonal sponsorships to rule the land, and the people to be irritable due to the heat (or downright drunk and belligerent).

Heck, even the Jumbotron signs are Fuji are friendly. This wasn’t even the nicest one, it’s just the one I happened to photograph.

Fuji Rock is without doubt a festival focused firmly on music but if there were an element to the festival (aside from it being a celebration of life) that is secondary in terms of importance, my guess would be that it is fashion and clothing. It felt like it is especially the non-Japanese attendees who really get a kick out of shocking other people by wrapping themselves in Union Jack flags or shunning all embarrassment by wearing outlandish things that would not be acceptable in everyday situations. The vast majority of the people at the festival, however, are dressed up in the latest high tech, brightly colored outdoor/camping wear that has become a hugely popular kind of fashion in Tokyo and other big cities in Japan. It seems as if wearing outdoor stuff is some kind of statement against the mainstream clothing industry and especially generic cheap fashion that has become so ubiquitous no matter where you go in the world. This photo is of a group of people who all live in Tokyo and completely shun the outdoor brand look, choosing to wear clothes that express their personality rather than just the prescribed fashion of the camping/outdoor crowd that dominates Fuji Rock. The lesson is: be yourself.

It was hard tearing myself away from the Indian comedy circus next door, but for Rookie-a-Go-Go contender Deepnow, it was worth it. The band was three young dudes with mop haircuts, and at its best points, the music reminded me of Te’, because it was following the same good trend: pushing postrock back out of shoe-gaze and into performance-oriented music. The grooves were fun and heavy, and though some were still a bit predictable, the band was not afraid of noisy uptempo jams, at times dropping into Ruins-like exploding bass lines. They definitely finished with a bang. Rookie-a-Go-Go is a tough stage, crowd-wise. Most of the onlookers were actually in line for a neighboring noodle stall, but it was enough for a crowd, and most of the people were well intrigued.

Ito Fumio made six appearances at Fuji Rock as the frontman of local ska punk legends Kemuri.  In 2010, he performed at the festival under his own name in support of his new solo act.  A definite FRF veteran, to say that Fumio looked comfortable onstage during his Saturday morning concert at the Field of Heaven is an understatement. Continue Reading…

Did someone say it was hot? Oh, yeah, I did, a hundred times already. Well, it was hot, and these folks were doing what we all wanted to do. Some of us thought a shower might be nice, too, but with a sold-out weekend and shower line-ups approaching the two-hour mark, the river was more tempting than usual.

I’m not a skier. I went once, in Nagano-ken, and barely made it down the hill alive. So when I saw these, it was like, why in hell are there giant fans all over the hillside here? Is this because it’s so hot in your tent at 7 am, you’re sweating rivulets into your pillow? That’s no exaggeration, by the way. My forehead was so covered in sweat, it had an undertow. This year’s dry Fuji – the driest since 2008 – was largely the hottest in recent memory as well. As soon as the sun came over the mountain peak at 6 am, the temperature in the tents on the campground began to rise. If you weren’t in shade, which most weren’t, you were out of your tent in the relative coolness of direct sunlight by 7 am. You had to be pretty hardcore to remain asleep.

Naturally, these aren’t giant fans, but snow machines. When I figured that out, my thought was, oh dear God, people…please…please turn them on.

It would be hard to find anyone who attends Fuji Rock complain that the organizers don’t make enough effort to create a festival that is not just a place to have your ears stimulated but also your eyes. Of course there is the legendary boardwalk, with all its light trickery and atmosphere that could have been taken from Alice in Wonderland. Again this year there was a warmly glowing arrangement of candles and some new light sculptures that had not been there in the past. The first thing however that struck me when walking around the grounds were how this cute pair of eyes had move around to the other side of the same tree that they were on last year, just before you arrived at the Green stage from the White stage. Continue Reading…

It is always interesting at a live show or music festivals to listen to what music the technicians behind the sound desk play between artist sets and in the past I have heard some amazing tunes being played. Seeing as these people listen to music all day long for a living, you would imagine they would play music that they really love in the small break they have before they have to sound check the next act. Just to give you a taste of what I mean, on the first day of the festival alone, I heard the Beastie Boys’ quintessential album “Check Your Head” played almost in its entirety on the white stage. Continue Reading…

Well, the thing is, I was watching New Cool Collective at the Cafe de Paris. When it was over, I had the choice of trekking all the way to the other end of the festival to catch M.Ward, who I’d asked to write about… or sitting in my plastic chair drinking mango juice in the sunshine for another hour.

That’s no choice at all, is it? So I missed M. Ward, but I did find a young Japanese girl who saw him and asked her to review it. Here’s Chie’s take:

“I thought ‘he’s so short!’ I was surprised. His voice is husky like a country singer so I thought he had to be tall. Like the singer from The Flaming Lips. But even though he’s short, he plays so emotionally and powerfully. In terms of emotions and timing, he combines nicely with the other musicians. Very cool.

M.Ward was obviously the leader. He brought the other musicians in. His CD was happy, indie, country and rock, but the live show was more powerful. It’s not blues-rock, but… it’s not country-rock, but… anyway, it was great how they veered away from the sound of the CD.

The Marquee was only about 30% full. Probably because Yosui Inoue was playing at the same time.”

Photo: 熊沢 泉
More pics: http://fujirockexpress.net/12/14632.html

Dancy anything music is the Crystal Palace’s specialty, so for Sunday night 1am slot at Fuji Rock 2012 they invited Ogawa Yusuke, a Tokyo DJ and bandleader who for this occasion brought a seven-piece band that was horn heavy. In short, it’s jazz you can dance to. They started out with a raucous version of “Tequila” but really, they were not nearly that trite. The tunes covered everything, polka, latin, rhumba and the lot. They had at least 600 arms swaying at one point (the Crystal Palace capacity is 300), and there were horn battles a plenty: sax versus trumpet, and the trombone player was swinging his axe in circles like he was a heavy metal headbanger. The crowd’s reaction? Please give me more – or at least that’s what they seemed to be saying with their feet. This was a sold-out Sunday at Fuji Rock and nobody wanted to go home, at least not this early. It was only just past midnight.

PHOTO: 八尾武志
More photos: http://fujirockexpress.net/12/16329.html

The emperor of Japanese folk rock hasn’t played Fuji Rock since 2002, so in the interim he asked his friend, another famed pop singer of his generation, the foppish Kiyoshiro Imawano, what he should play. Kiyoshiro, who played Fuji Rock in 2008 and passed within the next year, gave him a simple dictum: Play the hits. So that’s what Yosui Inoue did for this massive late afternoon set at Fuji Rock’s biggest stage on Sunday, July 29. His set for an audience of 20,000 or more included a couple songs off his most famous album, Kori no Sekaii (World of Ice)(1973), the first album to sell over a million copies in Japan, and a whole reel of other hits. “Kaerenai Futar”, “Kori no Sekai”, “Nazeka Shanghai” (Why Shanghai), and “Shonen Shidai” (The Time of Youth) were all delivered to an incredibly appreciative audience under a late day blue sky that was full of dragonflies. Yosui is now 64, but he is going strong and his voice is full as ever. He is known as one of Japan’s first independent singer to break through to pop magnitude, and he’s also a bit of a counter-culture figure who was once busted for marijuana and whose love ballads are laced with social commentary. (See Phil’s great introduction here.) That was all in the distant past for this set, but was certainly bubbling below the surface. If Inoue had fallen into irrelevance, he could not have possibly received the warm reception he did. A day earlier, British songwriter legend Ray Davies played the Green Stage to considerable applause. But imagine Davies playing Glastonbury, his home turf. That’s what Inoue was doing here, and a huge Fuji Rock crowd couldn’t have been happier to see it.

PHOTO: 直田亨
More photos: http://fujirockexpress.net/12/14633.html

When Refused’s lead singer Dennis Lyxzén told the Fuji Rock audience, “I’m sorry it took us 20 years to get here,” he was both referring to the band’s total absence from the music world in the last decade and also their sudden, much heralded return to a position that they might never have even imagined possible. Sunday night at Fuji Rock, the hardcore punk band from the tiny northern Sweden city of Umea, played to a White Stage audience of several thousands, with the entire front of the stage exploded into one giant mosh pit. They’ve done the same earlier this year at Coachella and several other major festivals. In the 90s, they were playing small punk clubs when they finally decided to call it quits.

Earlier in the night, Lyxzén offered a bit of an explanation, saying, “We wrote all these songs when we were a bunch of anarchists in the 90s, but they mean as much today as they did then, maybe even more. The world is even more fucked up in 2012 than it was then, and we need a revolution now more than ever.”

As for the set they played, it was as tight as a studio performance and as explosive as a club show. In other words, it was fucking awesome. Continue Reading…