On the second day I woke up a big later since I didn’t have to go through the
wrist-band exchange shuffle.  An uneventful trip back to the Chiba area.

“Blue Man Group”

The first “group” I wanted to see was the Blue Man Group.  They were up on
the Mountain Stage, the largest of the indoor stages.  Blue Man Group have
been around in New York for a long time, and I’ve always wanted to to see
them.  The stage had two large screens to the left or right onto which they
projected the action, so you could really get a great view from just about
anywhere in there.  The show was surprisingly well suited to this kind of
music festival: the drumming and stuff is great, the humor is universal, and
they had a bit where they played famous songs (Devo’s Whip-it, etc.) with little
gags at the end.  They also had a kind of demonstration of useful moves
that you can use while watching a show: head shake, hand pump, etc.  I
really enjoyed the show, and it really set the mood for the rest of the day.

“Tilly and the Wall”

The first real act of the day was Tilly and the Wall.  I haven’t heard any
of their stuff, but I’ve heard lots of good things about them on the podcasts
that I listen to – mostly
Shifted
Sound and NPR’s
All
Songs Considered.  Also a few people over on the
Bishop
Allen forums like them, so I was interested.  They are also from the
surprisingly active Omaha scene, and are connected to Bright Eyes in some way.

The most interesting thing about them is that they do not have a drummer. 
They have a dedicated tap-dancer, and each of the ladies (there are three of
them) had special little wooden stages set up which were wired for drum-like
sounds.  It was really impressive.  They also seemed to be very happy
to be in Japan, the lead guitars guy said that it had been a dream of theirs to
play Japan, and he really sounded like he meant it.  Anyway, these guys are
on my radar now, and if I get a chance I’m going to pick up one of their
albums. 

“Hadouken!”

Next up was Hadouken!  They are an interesting-looking group out of England
which caught my eye on the schedule because of their name for obvious
reasons.  Risa bought their album a while back and really likes them so she
rushed way up front.  I hung back a bit, and then as they got going (and
were much more heavy / rap / metal than I expected) it started to get pretty
wild.  I stuck around for a while, but left early so I could catch another
group that I’ve heard about from NPR that looked very interesting to me.

“The Polyphonic Spree”

The Polyphonic Spree is a large orchestral rock fusion band, with about 20
people on stage, a small chorus, horns, woodwinds and strings, and even a
harp.  They have been accused of being too happy, but I don’t think that is
a problem.  I really liked their song, and seeing them live was pretty
amazing.  They were a real high energy act.  They are definitely on my
list of albums to get.  Actually, along with Modest Mouse, this was my
favorite act of Summer Sonic.  Highly recommended.  I didn’t really
know much about them going in, but that wasn’t a big problem: the orchestral
format, with such a wide variety of instruments, was really interesting to
listen to and watch. 

Most surprising, one of their final songs was a cover of Nirvana’s
Lithium.  It was a really good cover, and I really got into it. 
Completely unexpected! 

Update: I just bought the Polyphonic Spree’s latest album,
The
Fragile Army, and the Japanese version has three extra bonus tracks (good
thing, since albums are so expensive here.  This one was a reasonable 2,200
yen though) one of which was that excellent Lithium cover.  I’m really glad
I picked this album up. 

“Bright Eyes / Karaoke Sonic”

Next up was Bright Eyes, with Connor Oberst, one of the guys that really set up
the Omaha music scene explosion.  I also do not know Bright Eyes’ music
well, but have heard a lot of their stuff on the podcasts that I listen
to.  I was looking forward to seeing them a lot, but after all the standing
around I had already done I was getting pretty tired, so I took a break. 
Right next to the Sonic stage, where I’ve been spending most of my time, was a
little break area with some benches and a secondary “Side Stage” area that was
doing all sorts of strange things during the festival.  One of them was
some sort of
group
of people that put on stare contents, Staremaster, in fact I think I saw a
battle between
Tsukika
and
Araki
Tomoe, but I am not positive about that.  I distinctly remember
avoiding watching a contest that had
Love
Sexy Otawaya vs. someone else.

Anyway, I should backtrack a bit to earlier in the morning.  I took a break
before Modest Mouse and at the same sidestage they had a Karaoke Sonic
setup.  I wandered by the registration desk, and one of the women there
asked me if I wanted to sign up since there were still a few spots left.  I
was really, really tempted: I enjoy Karaoke, and there are a few Japanese songs
that I like to sing.  It would probably go over well.  At the time
though, I had two misgivings: first, there were a bunch of bands that I wanted
to see, and this would probably take some time.  Second, the only song that
came to mind immediately was Dragon Ash’s “Grateful Days”, which is a great
song, but I haven’t been going to Karaoke at all lately. I knew that on the
final third of the song I would stumble since it is a fairly fast-paced rap and
that wouldn’t be so cool.  So I declined in the end, but it was a close
call. 

Well, later in the afternoon when I went back for a break I sat down and started
to watch the Karaoke Sonic thing.  The big surprise came when they
introduced the guest panel of judges, and included in the group was
Razon
Ramon of “Hard Gay” fame!  I know I’ve touched on it briefly before in
this blog, but I don’t really get Japanese humor that is on the
television.  It just doesn’t really seem funny to me.  I think there
are cultural differences, and probably I just don’t have enough background to
understand a lot of the humor, but in general I am not impressed with Japanese
comedians.  Hard Gay is another story though: I do think he is funny. 
I mean, the main gag, that he is a totally gay guy doing completely
inappropriate things in inappropriate situations, is fairly easy to
understand.  I actually like that a lot of his schtick is trying to teach
kids and do other good acts for people, all while being a complete gay
stereotype that I don’t really even think exists in Japan.  At least in New
York, I know where I can go if I want to bump into leather-clad S&M gay men,
but in Japan I think that stuff is confined only to for-pay sex clubs and does
not surface in everyday society. 

I also kind of like how the character brings up some discussion of homosexuality
in Japan, where it is just usually not spoken about.  I don’t think people
here are homophobic, they just in general don’t think about things that outside
the mainstream “group” dynamic.  So it is a bit interesting from an
investigation of common social norms sort of theme.

Anyway, I was really, really disappointed now that I had not signed up for
Karaoke Sonic.  Even if I botched my song completely – and a few minutes
after sitting down I realized I could also sing Sorimachi’s “Poison”, the theme
song to the GTO drama from many years back – I would still get a chance to meet
with and talk to Hard Gay.  Also, compared to the morning, this afternoon
session was packed: there were maybe a hundred people watching.  That would
be kind of fun, to get up in front of all those people and sing.  Even
worse, I decided to stick around to listen to the banter and see how well the
competitors sang, and I am positive that at worst I would have come in second
place.  There were only about six people (some of those were actually two
people in pairs, but six competitors) and I would have gone a long way on “white
guy singing in Japanese” alone. 

There was one foreigner from New Zealand, but he was pretty strange: he was
asian, and kind of bad pronunciation on his song, a My Chemical Romance ballad
about parades or something.  It was a pretty bad song to choose because it
was slow, very repetitive, and boring: the beat wasn’t fast, and it was really
sappy.  Those are the worst songs to Karaoke (easy to do though.) 
There was a Japanese guy who sang a British song from a group that was playing
Summer Sonic, and he was good, but not great.  Two other girls sang a song
from the 80s and went over well, and two more women – officially foreign ers
from China, but they lived in Japan for quite a while – that went over well
also.  The other memorable competitor was the winner, a Japanese woman who
sang The Spice Girl’s “Wannabe” with extreme vigor and vim.  She won, and I
doubt that I would have done better than her, but I could have at least come in
second, and I’m sure I would have had an interesting conversation with Hard
Gay.  Man, I’m really kicking myself over that. 

Next time there is some sort of public Karaoke Competition I don’t care what
sort of objections I come up with, I’m going to enter. 

“Cyndi Lauper”

I wasn’t sure what I should go see in this slot, but in the end Cyndi Lauper won
out for the nostalgia factor.  I can’t really say that I was ever a huge
fan, but I heard a lot of her stuff on the radio when I was younger, and I
wanted to see how she was doing now.  I was really surprised because the
place was packed for her show.  I guess there are a lot of Japanese Cyndi
Lauper fans out there.  I had never seen her live so I had no idea what to
expect, but she was very energetic and chatty.  While living in New York
she often went to some sushi bar where the guys there taught her some Japanese,
and so she was using all the words that she could remember, just simple things
like “genki” and “daijyoubu” and so on.  It was pretty cool though. 

She was running all over the stage, and in between songs would segue off into
strange stories that I’m sure nobody really understood.  Even as a native
speaker, understanding was an issue because these were really tangential and
non-sequitur type things to say.  I guess she is in her 50s now, but she
wore a short skirt, and playfully flashed her hot-pink panties at the crowd a
few times.  It seems strange to think of someone at her age acting like
that, but she was really having a good time, and so was the crowd. 

Her final song was “Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun”, and she went back behind
stage and pulled on about twenty people from other bands and so on to dance with
her.  It was really wild, the crowd was really into it and everyone was
having a great time.  Her show was, surprisingly to me, a really good one.

“Cornelius Group”

Cornelius Group is another group that I’ve heard very good things about, but
don’t know much about myself.  They are a kind of downtempo, relaxed, media
band that sets their music to experimental type movies and such when they
play.  They had a pretty intricate set-up on stage with a big screen for
projected video behind them.  It was very nice, but this kind of music and
“experience” is something that I would rather be able to take in while seated,
relaxing, and maybe with a drink or two.  The music that they play is
something I wouldn’t mind having on in the background, but not something to
which I would want to devote my full attention.

“Pet Shop Boys”

The final band of the night, and the entire festival, was Pet Shop Boys. 
I’ve always been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys, but not a rabid one.  The
first CD that I ever bought was Pet Shop Boys’ Actually, and in Japan at that
(when my dad brought me here for like a week when I was 14.)  They also
had a very intricate stage setup for video projection.  It was just the
two Pet Shop Boys themselves,
Neil
Tennant who provides main
vocals,
keyboards
and very occasionally
guitar, and
Chris
Lowe on keyboards.  They also then had two dancers, all they did was
dance, and two more backup singers, who also did a lot of dancing, and a total
Diva female singer.  The others were, as you might guess, completely hot
men who often went shirtless.  I’m sure the women in the crowd loved
it. 

They put on a really good show with very intricate choreographed dance moves,
and three costume changes.  Very impressive.  It was apparently the
last night of their World Tour, and they really put a lot of energy out
there.  They also sang that interesting U2 mashup cover of “Where the
Streets Have No Name”. 

Final Thoughts

I was surprised that there were so many good covers.  I guess the groups
that I picked to see also have some sort of connection to the music that I
remember fondly, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, but it was really
great to hear the Cure’s “Just like Heaven”, Nirvana’s “Lithium”, and the U2
mashup cover of “Where the Streets Have no Name”. 

After the entire weekend, I was just exhausted.  It was lots of fun, but
really tiring.  If there are some bands that I like going next year, I’ll
try to go again.  It is for sure a good deal for the money compared to most
live shows in Japan.  One other thing that I think is important is to start
to familiarize yourself with the bands that you plan on seeing a month or two in
advance.  I would have had a lot more fun had I been more familiar with
some of the bands that I went to see.  Still, a really fun
experience.