Let's Festival Together!

Ah so many adventures, so little time to blog! Starting with my highlight of the summer (and possibly of the year) Summer Sonic in Osaka. Although I almost cried when I saw the line up for the more expensive, further away Fuji Rock, (which had every band I want to see-Doves, the bravery, Futureheads, Hot Hot Heat...arrrrrrrghhhh!!!) I had a amazing time meeting random people (including some bands-woo!) observing some fantastic Japanese fashion and etiquette and, of course, watching some phenomenal bands!

The Bands
I came to realize that the strength of the performance rested on communicating with the audience-this is made difficult not only due to the language barrier but the fact that the audience is made up of die hard fans, mildly interested curiosers, and people who are just breezing by. Kasabian and Oasis seemed to have issues with the non-response of the audience, the Ordinary Boys and Weezer tried their hands at speaking the j-go (quite well!) and in some other cases, the music spoke for itself (bloc party, Interpol) I boogied my arse off to most bands and the atmosphere was fab, it felt like everyone was really making the most of it. Taking the summer by the reins and milking it till its nipples are red raw!!
The Others were bloody sensational. Unfortunately their songs aren't as exciting as their manifesto but they radiate anger and passion and drive when they're on stage. The Japanese fans were shouting "za ozassss!" which made me laugh. Top lads! The first thing they said to me was "Know where we can buy any drugs?" I then did my best to translate the j-folks bemused shouts to them (which wasn't difficult-consisted of "kakoiii!" and "tanoshikatta!" ect)Domonic was an absolute nutter and gave me his number in England (some use!) apparently when they're gonna do a show they just text the fans. Guerilla ne!

Orange Range also were super fun, utterly bouncy and carnival like. They had the crowd making dance circles, doing the locomotion dance and waving their towels (the ultimate festival accessory in Japan, it seems)


However, Interpol and bloc party really did it for me, at their volatile, brooding bittersweet best live.
The People
It appears that all the cute and crazy j-kids flock to these festivals! Everyone seemed totally enthusiastic and chilled out with none of the usual muso-posers...having your own space to dance in close to the front was great although I have to say that the rock and roll side of me kind of missed the crazy pushing and moshing back home!
The most memorable person we met wa a cute Japanese-Korean girl. She started to talk to me and Selena and I got an inkling that she wasn't your typical j-girl (she had good English for a start) then came the following exchange...
Her:Do you want to learn some Korean?
Me: OK
Her: Its quite sexual is that ok?
Me: Errrr Ok then
Her: (insert Korean phrase)
Me: What does it mean?
Her: It means "are you coming?" nice meeting you bye!

Victoria and Selena also made fab festival companions with lots of enthusiasm and Gillian's freind Chris that we met up with was a top laugh. When he said "lets get hammered" at 11AM I knew there was a good reason Gillian introduced us-cheers mate!