Fuji

I am neither particularly young and hip nor particularly old and jaded.  Being just on the windward side of forty, however, means that my progression from one to the other is certainly being made.  The "old" part is inescapable, should I want to continue to, you know, exist.  The "jaded" part, however, isn't necessarily a given.  I know twentysomethings who haunt the Casbah who are more jaded than I am.  Who knew that naiveté would have such benefits later in life?

Still, being in the rock writing biz for almost twenty years, you do start to get a little harder to impress.  That's why the Fuji Rock Festival has restored my faith.  I'm still verging on 39, but my cynicism had been swatted backward.

Fuji Rock came into place on the tailwinds of things like Lollapalooza and Glastonbury (in fact, it is run by the Japanese office of Smash, who organize the latter).  Upon my arrival, one of the first people I met called it "the best music festival in the world."  Why such high praise?  I've come to realize it's because the music is almost incidental.

Not that it isn't good, not that it isn't the focus - don't get me wrong.  There were ten stages at this year's festival, nestled into the mountain valleys in the resort town of Naeba, three hours north of Tokyo.  Combining all the artists, performers and DJs from Thursday's pre-festival party to final shutdown at 5 am Monday, there must have been about two hundred performers, some of whom performed more than once.  Music is central.  Yet the question I get asked the most is "who played?"  My answer is, "who cares?"  Fuji Rock a god-knows-how-big swatch of mountainous land that takes you forty-five minutes to traverse from end-to-end.  By the way, that's really far at 3 am, when you're leaving Paul Van Dyk at one end  to go see Grandmaster Flash at the other. There's even a stage up on the mountaintop, accessible only by gondola.Campsites on the slopes are teeming with excited fans, mostly Japanese, but ultimately from around the world.  The vibe is so positive, and the music so ubiquitous, that you almost don't care who you're seeing.  You're just happy to be hearing music in general.

Talk about music.  Talk about variety.  On my own docket (blogging reviews and other peices for Smash), I had punk, reggae, dub, folk, psyche, rock, experimental prog improv, post-rock, you name it.  That's not to mention the other stuff I took in, from Basque metal (the first band, Berri Txarrak, at the "pre-festival" party Thursday night) to gypsy punk (Gogol Bordello, whose 3 am set at in the "Crystal Palace" Spiegeltent was one of those much-hyped show-of-the-weekends that actually really was the show of the weekend).  I saw some band I wanted to see, who were outstanding (ALL, Ellegarden) and some band I wanted to see who were not so outstanding but weren't without their charms (Flower Travellin' Band, My Bloody Valentine).  On my way to one band, I'd pass by three others.  I can honestly say I lost track of the band I saw...but I think it was about thirty or forty.   Sixty?  God, I really don't know.

This blogging deal is no free ride.  The days are blisteringly hot and humid - until it rains on you.  The White Lodge is not air-conditioned.  You travel long distances to cover bands at opposite ends of the festival.  You write, and you write, and you write.  And you love it.

All through the weekend, I think I met two rude people. This is how polite, happy, and easy-going Fuji Rock people are - by "rude" I mean, "they bumped into me, and when I said excuse me, they didn't respond." That's about how rude it gets. No jarheads lit any towers on fire. No morons tackled me into the dirt. I didn't even see anyone puking in the bushes, despite the fact that you could drink anywhere in the park.

(Note to fellow Canadians: imagine Edgefest x 10 with beer as a free-for-all. Are you shaking in fear? Yes. Yes. Calm down. It's okay. Shhhhh. It's okay.)

So by 4:45 am on Sunday, I was wiped. Dead. Done. Stick a fork in me. My feet felt as though my soles had been beaten with a cricket bat. And I really didn't care.  Sign me up for next year, folks.

Check out www.fujirockexpress.com <http://www.fujirockexpress.com/>  (the English section) for live reports by myself and the rest of the E-team.

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[FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND Freak!]

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[FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND is Rockin' Treasure.]

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