Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

Best feat of engineering

Best show
John Fogerty: After seeing Stevie Wonder at Summer Sonic last week, I was refortified in my opinion of what a rare and wonderful treat Fogerty’s Saturday evening set was. Though Stevie can still ram and jam with the best of them, it’s clear that those classics, as great as they are, mean less to him with every passing concert. He’s just played them too many times. Fogerty, on the other hand, went almost three decades without playing his classic CCR tunes in front of people simply because he didn’t own the publishing and didn’t think he should pay for the privilege of performing them. Now that he’s got the publishing back, it’s like he’s discovered these songs for the first time: fresh, tough, eminently sing-alongable. Now it’s our privilege to hear them again.
Runnerup: Moriarty, the best France-based, Anglophone, Irish-American-roots rock group with female lead singer. Every festival should have one. Continue Reading…

Fuji Rock 2010 hosts what I just today decided is the greatest band on the planet: toe. It seems like in rock music there has always been an inverse relationship between instrumental virtuosity and emotional resonance, a phenomenon which interestingly never occurred in jazz. Lots of post rock bands have been gamely flauting that law over the past decade, but I believe toe has achieved the complete destruction of it. I’ve got 33 cuts of theirs stretching over eight years of albums and EPs, and there is not a single note, not a single bit of information etched into a CD or hard drive, that is not five solid and immutable stars of perfection.

If you like the indie-rock melancholy of Broken Social Scene you will like the vibe of toe, and with musicians this jaw-droppingly great there is nothing like witnessing their feats in person. My only regret is that it will be my first full show of the whole fest, 3:40 pm Friday at the White Stage, and I fear it will set my expectations too high for the rest of the weekend.

Further down the list of renown, but in much the same vein of virtuosity, there is Continue Reading…

John Fogerty

There’s only one person on the bill this year that appeared at the original Woodstock: John Fogerty (there nearly were two – Them Crooked Vultures’ John Paul Jones was invited to Woodstock with Led Zep, and the band was reportedly keen, but manager Peter Grant ruled it out on the premise that there were too many big names on the bill – the exact opposite reason for the refusals of The Byrds and The Doors, who thought it would be just a hokey little festival of no significance). Continue Reading…

There are tons of acts this year that have never been to Japan before, but which of the artists on the FRF’10 roster who has played in Japan has been away the longest? Research indicates that John Paul Jones, who is coming with the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, played in Japan with Led Zeppelin in Oct. 1972, while John Fogerty, who is coming in his own capacity as a solo act, was in Japan with Creedence Clearwater Revival in Feb. 1972. Fogerty wins by a guitar pick.

This difference has a larger meaning than just as a bit of trivia. As terrific as John Paul Jones is and was, he was simply one-fourth of one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and Them Crooked Vultures is not Led Zeppelin. However, John Fogerty was for all intents and purposes CCR, the original roots rock band and some might say the greatest singles band in American pop history.

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In the first announcement we got a former member of Led Zepplin and now in the third list of bands we get a former member of Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Think any more legendary performers will be added before the start of the fest?

Check out what other recently revealed artists will be joining John Fogerty at FRF ‘10 after the jump.

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