Japan Holiday, August 01 (High And Dry)

I forgot to mention I started Fuji weekend with a challenge. The convenience stores (in particular) like to price things at 105 or 110 yen, vending machine cans cost 120 yen, so you end up with HEAPS of 10 yen coins and other metal capable of sinking a battleship. So, my challenge was to get rid of about 110 x 10 yen coins and about another 1000 yen of others (50, 5 and 1). After a Sunday morning trip to the convenience store I'm down to about 50 x 10 yen and a whole bunch of 5's and 1's that just aren't going anywhere. So I failed the mission, but gave it a good run. I also found some ear plugs, so I'm all set for a bumper Sunday.

Walking to the white stage.

Walking to the main stage.

Main stage aka Mud stage.

First up on the main stage was Vampire Weekend. After last nights downpour the hill isn't in as bad shape as I thought. I'd already bought tickets to see VW in Melbourne before the Fuji lineup was announced, so I'd seen them less than six months ago. Still, they have some cool songs and best of all they don't go for too long. They played A-Punk and Cousins too, so 8/10.

Vampire Weekend

Caught the second half of Foals who were playing at the same time as Vampire Weekend. Usually I don't get much value from listening to bands live for the first time, but these guys weren't too bad, 6/10. LCD Soundsystem were following them on the white stage, so I waited around for that. Their songs often focus on repetition, which is cool if you know the song and like the beat, but it would otherwise be less than ideal. They played some songs I knew and some I didn't, so I was just wanting them to hurry up and get onto the next one, 7/10.

LCD Soundsystem

Walked past Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke from Radiohead's new band) playing on the main stage. The songs sounded pretty boring - basically he ONLY plays songs from his one solo album Eraser and NOTHING from Radiohead. It should be the other way around.

Air was next in the tent. I was really looking forward to Air, hoping they could deliver a lesser version of a Chemical Brothers show. What I got wasn't all that I'd hoped, some of the lyrics they put into their songs were computer generated, in particular Kelly Watch The Stars (my favourite) and didn't seem to match the original song. They made up for it with a good version of Sexy Boy though. Overall they were worth seeing, 7/10.

Walked past Massive Attack, also playing on the main stage. Waited through a couple of songs to see if I could catch Teardrop, but it didn't come so I continued on over to see Belle And Sebastian. Didn't have much expectation for them, but was a bit disappointed these were my only two choices to end the festival. I think they were definitely better than Massive Attack though and played a few I didn't mind. About two thirds of the way through their set the rain kicked in, so I decided I'd end up there and head back via a couple more Massive Attack tracks. Scissors Sisters were playing a very late set on the main stage, but I would have been waiting over an hour for that, so didn't bother.

So to recap the festival as a whole, I'd say it was good and worth going to. If I'd spent that much money to see the equivalent in Melbourne I'd be a little disappointed, so I guess the experience is something intangible that you factor in to your decision. That's not to say there weren't a lot of things that could have been improved: less people with chairs, better weather, better scheduling of bands. The most important thing is the lineup, which was probably not enough to stretch three days. If I hadn't seen a few of the bands already it would have been much less of an issue. I think part of the problem was that there was another festival running on the same weekend in Australia - some bands played both (Friday one and Sunday the other) while others had to choose between the two (I missed out on seeing BRMC again for one). I'd do it again, probably in another country, but only with a strong lineup.