First day of Fuji but not before a free breakfast! That's right, it's breakfast and it's free! Actually the accommodation here was damn expensive so it's the least they could do. Since the small hotel is family run it's a little bit more casual and traditional style breakfast, but still help yourself / all-you-can-eat style.
So off to Fuji Rock it was. The schedule was looking a little more suspect that I first thought, there's lots of overlap between the two biggest stages, and then periods when noone is playing on either. Pretty poor if you ask me. I walked around to get an idea of where the various stages were then stopped in for the end of The Bawdies. They're a Japanese band so I don't know what they were signing about, but it sounded ok. Next was Ash on the main stage. I know they had a hit years ago with Kung Fu but not much else. They played that one though, so it was worth it, I give them about a 4/10.
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| Smash Go Round ! |
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| The Bawdies |
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| Ash. Too many people in chairs. |
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| The Cribs ! |
My early observations after sitting down on the grass on the main (green) stage to see Ash. Why the hell does everyone have seats ? Why the hell does everyone have tarps to sit on ? Why the hell is everyone allowed to just reserve their spot by leaving all this junk in prime position, then come and go as they please ? Now I haven't been to a multi-day festival before, and I haven't been to a festival at all for a few years, but this just seems pretty ridiculous. The worst part is the people will all of this camping gear aren't really that far back from the stage. So if you want to go to the front you have to struggle through this maze, and if you want to sit you have to scan the hill for the occasional gap where people haven't pitched their seats down. It really seems quite selfish and inconvenient.
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| Hill for campers. Camping is the worst. |
So I waited around at the green stage amongst all the jerks for The Cribs, the first band I was quite keen to see. I enjoyed their set and knew most of the songs, so about a 7/10. Mute Math came on next, who I was only vaguely familiar with. Still, some of the songs were pretty catchy and I'd give them a 5/10.
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| Mute Math |
Leaving the main stage for the marquee tent now, where Broken Bells were playing - featuring James Mercer from The Shins! They've only got one album, and I liked it a lot. Playing live I guess I was expecting a performance worthy of The Shins. They were still good, but failed to live up to expectation and some of the songs were a little slow and long, another 7/10 performance. As their set was going I looked around to see the rain had started up and it wasn't happy. They must have constructed this tent poorly as small puddles were covering most of the floor. Not enough to be a problem (but for getting electrocuted) but means you can't sit down between sets (unless you brought a chair!).
I wasn't planning to stay in the tent for the The XX but the rain was quite convincing - and everyone else seemed to have the same idea. The XX were painfully slow, each song seemed to go for nearly 10 minutes and was pretty basic, 2/10. Luckily next up in the tent was the other band I was eager to see today, Broken Social Scene - unfortunately Feist wasn't touring with them though. I hadn't noticed until now, but I'd managed to make it this far into the day (about 8PM by now) without needing ear plugs and it didn't even feel like my ears were going to be ringing all night, a perfect scenario. That all changed when BSS got on stage. I fail to understand why a band needs to just blast their fans like that, it was the only downside to what was a nice set, particularly a couple of songs from their latest album that I like, 8/10.
The final choice of the day was between the grand stage show that is Muse, and the great !!! (Chk Chk Chk). I've seen them both before, but thought that !!! would provide a little bit more variety to the festival. However as we got to the green stage and saw how much grass had been turned into mud during the afternoon it looked like it would be both slow and very slippery to head past to the white stage for !!!. So, we stayed at Muse which wasn't a bad decision in the end, Muse know how to put on a great live show and every song is quality. A 9/10 and a good way to end the day.
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| Food |
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| Crystal Palace, part of the overnight entertainment |
Add these to the things I should have packed:
- Folding Chair
- Tarp / Plastic / Blanket to sit on
- Ear Plugs
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