Fuji Rock Festival 2008

Getting there...
We left Tokyo on the 19:05 Seibu express way bus [西武高速バス - せいぶ・こうそく・ばす] which cost a meagre* 5400yen return and took us just under 3 hours to get to the Yuzawa [湯沢] bus stop. Despite printing out the map of the bus stop location (in relation to Echigo-Yuzawa station [越後湯沢駅] where the free festival site shuttle bus ran from) from both Google maps and the Seibu bus website we felt a bit lost when we got to the bus stop. The bus stop was just off the highway and not particularly near the town. On the brightside there were 3 other pairs of people looking as bemused as we were when we reached the bus stop. We hung around for a couple of minutes searching for inspiration and possibly some leadership, and then all decided to wonder off in the direction of the signs to Yuzawa town. This involved, first of all, walking down a dark set of stairs to get us safely off the motorway. The maps around the bus stop weren't too bad...and after walking a while we just had to head for the huge, brightly-lit, concrete monstrosity which is the (Echigo) Yuzawa train station. Which all in all took us about 30mins. Even before getting to the front of the station we pasted several flags proclaiming the arrival of the Fuji Rock Festival. As we walked up to the front of the station we could clearly see two tents for the festival - an information point and a first aid tent (should you have been a little overexcited on the journey to Echigo-Yuzawa) and a queue for the free shuttle bus to the festival site. The queue wasn't too bad, and just after we arrived another train load of people arrived...we didn't have to wait long for another bus to turn up...they seemed pretty frequent...I'd say, less than 5mins between buses, but it was pretty packed when we did get on, so we stood, with our luggage, for the 40min bus ride, with someone's trolley bag ramming into my legs every time we turned left sharply.

The site was very lively when we arrived, and tents were already being pitched at very strange angles on the ski-resort slopes. After walking up the hill for 2minutes I was already grumbling to Greg that I didn't want to go much further, but he miraculously managed to find a free flat piece of land close to the pavement hiding in between some tents and just behind a little area someone had saved for their friends using some packaging tape on grass - a method which works surprisingly well. I should also mention, there was a special area cordoned off just for ladies, with a member of staff standing, well sitting, guard at the entrance.

*The price of a Shinkansen [新幹線] ticket is currently set at the hefty sum of 6980yen from Tokyo, Ueno [上野] station without a seat reservation ONEWAY (7490yen with a seat reservation). Double the one way ticket for the return price.

A clearing in the woods on the way to the white stage, with a disco ball....the light was reflecting beautifully off onto the surrounding trees. A big display of candles in a fabric covered dome at the end of the Organic hippy type stage...

Festival Etiquette...
AnyHoooo, the festival. yes. Fantastic stuff, lovely atmosphere, and all my belongings felt safe. No fear of having stuff in the tent, or the tent it's self, stolen. AND you can happily reserve your little spot in front of the stage by plonking down your folding chair or your nice plastic 'leisure sheet' in the desired location, in full knowledge that people will not 1. nick it, 2. move it or 3. trample all over it. I love Japan.
We also noticed it is perfectly acceptable to sleep on the huge grass field that was the green stage, even in the rain - we saw people in a full Gortex outfit, lying on their soaked mat, with some rudimentary plastic sheeting to protect the face trying to get shut eye. How they managed to get rest through the loud music, I don't know. They either couldn't be bothered to go to the tent or they didn't have one and didn't care. Amusing none the less.

Eco Festival...
The festival was also gloriously clean (and green). The portaloos were actually more pleasant than the permanent loos close to the camp site, ok a tiny bit muddy on the floor, but plenty of toilet paper (at least there was every time that I went) and even some places where there were specific urinals for men and women only toilets. Lots of collection points for rubbish and recycling, a system run by 'A Seed Japan'. We noticed that food was dispensed in very similar paper material from all vendors, and drinks all came in paper cups. These were all recycled, as were cigarette packets, PET bottles, plastic bottle tops and cans. Just after you enter the festival site, there were volunteers handing out large plastic bags with a variety of designs on them - they looked pretty good actually and described the recycling process...or where all the items you were going to be throwing away would be going... The bags were for your rubbish (but also doubled as rain jackets for some people during the festival or something to sit on or a rain cover for bags and belongings) happened to be made from recycled PET bottles, and were handed out so that you didn't litter everywhere, even though you never seemed to be more than a stones throw from a rubbish collection point.

Walking around the festival site: (left) big inflatable stars which flashed different colours at night, and (right) a river running through the site, where some people have placed brightly painted stones with eyes on them, you can see all the Japanese in their festival chic...crocs - sandal and wellie form seemed to dominate the footwear here.

Getting from stage to stage...

The Festival was quite spread out...a couple of minutes walk from the middle of the camp site to the camp site entrance where all the washing and toilet facilities were, along with two food stalls, which included a small convenience stand...like if you needed to buy a toothbrush or a crappy rain jacket or ladies sanitation items. The entrance to the festival site was another couple of minutes walk from the entrance of the camp site... then it takes you about 20mins to walk from end to end of the festival site. But to be honest, most of the main stages; Green stage, Red Marquee and White stage were the first three stages you come across anyway.

Queues for Merchandise...
While it was true that there were longer queues for the merchandise tents than the beer tents, this was only true at the beginning of the festival for the first thursday - at the official merchandise tent near the wristband exchange point and for the friday on the first festival day. There are several reasons for this, 1. The Japanese - especially the more experienced ones - are very organised and can often be seen wheeling in cold boxes with pre-prepared drinks and snacks into the festival sites (although cans and glass bottles were not allowed for safety reasons). 2. There were an ample amount of beer tents, so no shortage of supply - nearly every stall which sold food also sold alcohol. 3. The Official T-shirts for Fuji Rock had a huge range of designs, and some very nicely done so that you could happily wear it as a fashion item as opposed to just being another rough T-shirt. 4. There were only a limited number of T-shirts and popular designs sell out quickly (the main reason for there being nearly no queues for the merchandise stalls on the last two days.

The Music...
The Music did actually play...but we didn't see them. In fact we were rather lazy and didn't see most of the things on offer from Fuji Rock past 11pm...like the DJ events in 'late night fuji' or 'Rookie-a-go-go'. Anyway, here is a quick run down of the major bands that we did see (along with some random photos):

Gossip - Despite being on at 1520 in the red marquee there was a crazy crowd who went absolutely mad for Beth Ditto.

Album recordings do not do Beth Ditto's voice justice, the woman has incredible power and tune. She did complain about being hot and stripped off to her underwear at the beginning of the show and at some point wore a towel round her head. But despite the heat she still gave a stunning performance. The atmosphere in the small stage was great, just like a small gig. They mixed in a bit of Pixies - monkey gone to heaven and even Madonna - like a virgin very smoothly during the intro to their other songs.

(Left) Hard-Fi and (Right) Asian Dub Foundation

The Zutons on White stage

A tree with eyes!!! and Benfolds in the rain.

Benfolds was great, but we did manage to get caught in a thunderous downpour which completely soaked every one...we decided to give up on that sunday and go back to the tent to dry off...

Jazz...

23rd Feb after catching up with Greg and Aaron at the Bunkyo-ku cultural festival (where they were stars of the show and the cameras followed the two male gaijins around for most of the morning) we acquired an Amy, and then spent a good few hours trying to decide what to do for the evening....

To stem Amy's chronic boredom disease, Greg cunningly suggested a Jazz club in Ikebukuro...so we all toodled down to Miles' cafe to have a listen to their Jam session.

It was a little trek from the station, and down in the basement of an unsuspecting building. We pressed the button for B1...and waled out straight into the room where the Jam session was going on. A guy, who looked like he was in charge, seemed a bit confused that we were there...and tried to direct us to B2 (where the proper Jazz musicians play for more money) but we assured him that we were where we wanted to be...and we just wanted to spectate. We paid our 1000yen each (and got our 1000Miles - ie... its worth 1000yen in drinks; there were two prices for drinks: 500miles and 1000miles and a tiny bar at the back of the long Jamming room from whence the drinks were served). We were served our drinks by another customer, who happened to be behind the bar...and kind enough to give the weird foreigners drinks. The guy we paid money to at the beginning spent the rest of the night being very VERY hospitable...giving us snacks and more drinks for free... he also explained how the people currently playing were beginners to Jazz and that more experienced people played later on (including him).

It turned out to be more of a lesson and a place to practice (I doubt many apartments would be too happy with you belting out on your sax whilst you tried to practice your Jazz skills...and the Jam sessions let you practice without upsetting your neighbors...) . The night got better and better, with one guy (a skilled piano player) switching to a kids toy (a rudimentary keyboard thing which he blew into at one end to make a sound) to join in with the music making. He was damned good. It was great fun. we'll have to go back.

A very cool café

Rei had insisted we do some form of climbing on Sunday, and luckily for me rain was forecast; which meant that I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed at silly-o’clock to get me down to Yugawara. So, to satisfy Rei’s urge to climb we went to Pump2 instead…

When we got to the wall, Rei proclaimed that she would climb 10 tens (5:10’s); she seemed very excited about this. I think she’s just trying to kill me…I just gone climbing on the Wednesday before for the first time in about 2 weeks and I was crap! So I wasn’t really expecting to be able to do much today but see how long it would take me to wear myself out.

Anyway, Rei bounced up and went into her mission with all her energy…we did 5 and to celebrate the halfway mark we had a little break. Up in the rest area, from where there is a nice viewing window to watch all the people doing the viciously high overhangs on ‘tsunami’ from a comfortable position, we had a nice little rest and our usual animated discussions in English attracted some attention as per usual but this time from someone we actually knew. After a little chat we went back to the business of climbing…

Five climbs later and we were both quite happy to get away from the wall…And Rei had been told that a band that she liked were playing at a café half way between where we were and Shinjuku, so we headed off to the Café.

We walked in the rain down a narrow road, lined with little shops, in a very nice little town. Finally we found the entrance to the café besides a book shop, the signs took us winding behind the shop and upstairs to the roof. The metal stairway opened up into an outdoor lounge area. The rain drizzled through the straw-matting which sheltered the space. Directly opposite, you could see the more solid structure of the main part of the café. As you enter, the hatch to the kitchen would be seen through the ordering window. The band was at the furthest wall in the small, dimly lit room. On the bare sheets of wood which were screwed on to the walls were a mixture of brightly coloured paintings of tropical scenes and artistic sketches. The whole room had the perfect atmosphere for the music which followed.

We were just in time to get a small table at the edge of the room, which someone had just vacated, and we perched ourselves down on the dark wooden oblongs that served as seats. There were only about 12 people in the room, including staff, and the café was pretty much full. Rei got down to the serious business of ordering us some food…climbing is hungry work…and not long after she sat back down, the music started. There three in the band, a cellist, guitarist and the lead guy was on a tiny guitar (I don’t know what they are called) and doing the singing too. His voice was perfect, fitting with the chorus from all three instruments and the atmosphere of the café. Obviously the songs were all in Japanese, so understanding what he was actually singing about was practically impossible for me, but the music impressed me nonetheless. The second song, saw the cellist change to a flute and the front man pick up a Sanshin (similar to the Shamisen) Japanese instrument made of snakeskin…(apparently home to the Okinawa region, where snakes are rife and thus the easiest source of animal skin for music making).
Our burgers arrived, and they were delicious! My BLT was perfect and before I knew it Rei had magicked hers away. Anything other than rice is good, after 8months of the stuff everyday.

The band went on to play some Spanish music, also sung in Spanish, which was impressive, with not even a hint of a Japanese accent. And there was a truly brilliant performance by the guitarist during an acoustic solo, which involved a blur of finger movement over his strings.

They had some really attention grabbing songs, which I’m sure would have been catchy too, if I’d understood them. An awesome band in a cool café…