Usually R. and I are Summer Sonic attendees. This year though, we got three day tickets to Fuji Rock, a three day festival up in the mountains in Naeba, Japan. So I took Friday and Monday off work, and Thursday night we packed up. Early Friday morning (about 4am) we loaded up the Mini Cooper and headed out. It is about a four hour drive, and we rolled into Naeba at about 9.

To do a good stay at Fuji Rock, you really need to prepare. Things that are essential:

• Rain gear. In our case, relatively nice ($100 or so) ponchos. It very likely will rain. You need to be prepared.
• Rain boots. Even if it does not rain, there will be mud. Lots of mud. Ankle deep mud. So either wear shoes and socks that you don’t want to use ever again, or get some good mud-proof boots.
• Portable chairs. I recommend folding Coleman camping chairs, but you can also get by with smaller portable stools. Generally the deal is that you leave in the morning at about 10am, then go somewhere and set up a small camp. There are not benches or seat or bleachers, so you need to be able to spend a long time in one place. Either standing or sitting, but a portable chair will help either way.
• Sun protection. Sunblock or long sleeves.
• Bug spray. You are in the mountains.
• Possibly a tarp of some sort.
• Books? Something to pass the time.

Why would you want a tarp? Generally people set out a tarp like thing (normally in the US we would use a picnic blanket or something) take off their shoes, and use the tarp as a home base. No shoes though. They also will leave their stuff at the home base and maybe go out to other stages. You definitely should not leave anything valuable there, but I’ve left my folding coleman chair at the home base without any problems. So semi-valuable (< $40?) is probably ok. And you spend the entire day going from stage to stage (factor in about 20 minutes to get between the close stages, longer for the further ones) and stopping at the stands to get food.

Overall I find Fuji Rock to be a really tough time. I’m always deathly afraid of sunburns, so I wear long sleeves which means that I pretty much am too hot all the time. I also do very badly at sitting on the ground or in sub-optimal furniture, so end up with sore feet or a sore back, or whatever. I do like reading though.

So what did I see? The bands I checked out are on the left – all merchandised links to either Amazon or Amazon Japan – and the stand outs for me were:

• Vampire Weekend. I’ve seen these guys a few times now. They remind me of my days in New York. I really want to see some of my favorite bands from those days come back to Japan (We Are Scientists, and Bishop Allen primarily) but have a really good sound and catchy pop tunes. They were one of the few bands that I dropped my stuff and went up to the stage for. Lots of fun.
• I hadn’t heard Atoms For Peace (or maybe they go by Thom Yorke’s solo name? They are Thom Yorke and Flea primarily) before, but they were really good.
• !!!. My friend, D.S. was the interpreter for them, and it sounds like it was a tough job. They put on a really fun show though.
• MGMT. White stage was super crowded at that time and they limited entrance. It must have taken us like an hour to get there, but we did get there before MGMT went on. We also left a bit early because it would have sucked to try to walk back with the entire crowd. I suspect White Stage was so crowded because the act on Green Stage at the time was just awful (Chris Cunningham?) It looks like he is primarily a video artist, but when we were walking by his set I was really surprised that he would be closing on Green Stage. Dissonant, noisy, disturbing. I don’t think that is appropriate for a Green Stage closing act. I might be wrong though.
• The Cribs. A favorite of R.’s, and I like them now as well.
• Mutemath was good. Fit very well with what I was reading at the time (Paolo Bacigalupi.)
• Scissor Sisters. A bit rainy when they were on, but lots and lots of fun.
• There were a bunch of acts that I didn’t know but saw and liked. On that list: Them Crooked Vultures, Jamie Cullum, Kula Shaker, John Butler Trio.

I had a lot of fun, but I need to remember that every time I go to Fuji Rock it is exhausting. Tiring. If we weren’t staying in the Naeba Prince Hotel (sharing a room with people that R. found on Mixi?) it would have been awful. I would never camp out there. There are other hotels you can stay at, but they often involve 40 minute or hour long bus rides from the Fuji Rock site. If the weather is good, and you can relax on the Green Stage hillside with a good book and nice chair, it is really fun though.

The Naeba Prince Hotel also has a nice public bath for 300 yen that you can relax into after a long day at the festival. It also sidesteps problems with 1. No door on the bathtub area in hotel room (wtf? Normally there is a door there so you can change before hopping in the tub.) and 2. with 4-5 people in a room, it can be a long process to figure out how to use the bathroom resources. The big (culturally very normal in Japan) sex-segregated public baths nicely sidestep that issue. Also, the Naeba Prince has a breakfast buffet. Nice.