We awoke early the following morning to meet Guy, Shell and Ami and Ami's brother Ko-chan at Tokyo station. Surprisingly everyone arrived at the meeting point within 5 minutes of each other, quite an amazing feat in this place!
It was really good to see Ami again, and to meet her brother. James and Guy embraced as they had been in each others absence for two and a half years. James forgot that we had seen Guy & Shell 2 days earlier and couldn't figure out why there was just a friendly shake of the hands between us.
After a smooth ride on the Shinkansen we arrived at the shuttle bus stop, and realised how very unprepared some of us were when it started pissing down with rain, Sophi's red waterproof jacket wasn't waterproof after all, resulted in red dye dripping down all over her! A very special start.
Mean while miss Shell and Guy had obviously been camping before when they whipped out their wet weather protection within milliseconds – protected head to toe to backpack!
As we set up tent it was definately time to get into the beers and sit back and enjoy what we were doing.
Sophi's disastrous red dye event resulted in her attempt to rinse the rest of the dye out of her Ralph Lauren jacket. A funny sight and as rustic as she'll ever be seen! An interesting site which took the attention of many Japanese stopping and staring in complete awe.!
We went down to check out the festival once the sun dipped down....not much going on. Thursday was just a warm-up day to get everyone settled in the camp site.
Day 2: Opening Day of Festival
When we heard James trying to wake us at 0530 our first thoughts were All Night Bender, but we discovered that Dave & Kumiko had finally arrived at Fuji Rock (5 hours late mind you). We all made our way down to the car and started carrying the supplies up. 2 hours later we were done. Time for some well-earned 8 am morning beers.
We checked out the timetable http://www.smash-uk.com/frf07/lineup.html and were very very impressed with what we saw.
First off we witnessed a Japanese Ska band who were rocking out deep into the forest. With soaring temperatures, we jumped, skaed, and danced till we were soaked. What a way to begin!
Next on the list was Jarvis Cocker who, to be honest, was quite disappointing.
Kings of Leon took the stage, We'd never seen them before, not bad but nothing special.
By this stage we had learnt a few things about Japan:
Vending Machine Heaven – in the middle of nowhere
Japanese people sleep ANYWHERE
Having a ridiculously high population, the festival held 190 000 people (compared to Sydneys largest of 95 000). This photo is just 1 of 11 stages.
We had all been waiting to see Muse, apparently they were one of the best at Fuji. So then in true Cam form the minute they started playing, we decided to go for a wander around the festival. In true friendly mode, Cam decided to approach basically every Japanese person we passed in an effort to chat in his well and truly drunken state...which made the journey between the 9 massive stages an entertaining one.
We stumbled down to the next stage and watched John Butler Trio, those guys surely know how to rock. Then, Groove Armada stepped out and really stepped it up a notch. Seeing these guys live is amazing, a favourite performance.
Also not forgotten was Kumiko and Dave efforts for their matching outfits in which Dave so masculinly sported a mini matching esky....looked more like a handbag...very sexy!!!
We were all immensely impressed by our first day of Fuji Rock Festival 07.
By this point we all could hardly move so we retired back to the tent for some well earned rest.
Day 3: The Struggle
Another sweltering day meant very little sleep for the wicked!! With wanting to ease the slight hangover and find relief from the heat we decided to head straight to the river. A few rocks were thrown and splashes made, more crazy Japanese passed out anywhere (...on a bed of rocks!), a few beers and sake with a good feed. All this led to the calling of an afternoon nap.
In true Japanese style Guy, Shell and ourselves decided to cop-a-squat under a tree to pass out within metres from one of the main stages. We happily dozed off to the sound of Switches, quite surprisingly as it was definitely not lullaby music.
After being woken by the sounds of Lily Allen, who was quite commendable - had we seen her actual performance we may have had more appreciation. With all the heat, the time had now come for random spurts of light rain, so we headed back to camp to prepare for the night ahead.
After a wog shower (of deodorant) we headed to see the notorious performance of Iggy Pop. We caught the end of Kaiser Chiefs, which by this stage was just a blurred memory. Then Iggy graced the stage. Something definitely not to be missed. A musician so old (and my god he looked old) still had a buffed body and was climbing on top of speakers humping them and going nuts. But the icing on the cake was when he so cleverly invited all the crowd onto stage. Something so great to watch as there would be absolutely no chance of this occurring in Sydney, with all the tight security that nails you down and beats the hell out of you! That entire stage was filled with Iggy loving fans pouncing on him and every now and again you'd here a strained “I love you Iggy!!” being shouted down the mic before being taken away.
An entertaining event for all. Except Guy, who had been raging the night away, and then missed this best Iggy event, all in class mind you........
Beastie Boys then loaded up.... something that just isn't entertaining enough now a days with being so old, their performance just isn't what you pump yourself up for. After realising this the 2nd time round after Good Vibes, the two of us, so exhausted, decided to get a few hours sleep before Justice who was on at 2am. We very quickly passed out and woke up to the rude awakening of the drunken holas of our fellow friends. More really being lifted out of my sleeping bag by Dave and Ami. James had very smartly not entered the tent knowing an ass whooping would've occur otherwise. A very smart choice as who could get angry at Ami?!
Dishevelled and trying to regain energy we all headed down to see Justice. An awesome performance. Although had definitely wished we had been more awake and as wasted as everyone else who were raging to it all. Once finished we headed back to our snug sleeping bags. This later was somewhat regretted as the escapades of Dave, Ami and James were of top notch we later found out. Stories and photos are the evidence to the slapping and everything else we missed during our slumber. I guess that's what you get for being soft!
Day 4: The Grand Finale
Still feelin' sluggish we attempted to go down to the main stage and catch a nap Japanese style in front of the stage. We then trekked back to get clothes and see Mika. A very gay performance by a very gay man. With balloons let off and costumed people as fuzzy rabbits and bears were all a big hit with the Japanese crowd. They loved it, anything cute goes down over here.
Then of course random rain starts so in order to catch some of Joss Stone we ventured to get some type of wet weather gear. A $5 raincoat was the common choice, and we seemed to buy 2 every day as they ended up trashed or lost. With a return trek from the music area to camp being a good 40 min walk, we only caught the last few songs of Joss Stone. Her passion brought tears to Sophi's eyes, the combination of her powerful voice and the wear and tear of a 4 day festival showed for a brief moment.
With the mission planned to head back to camp to help Dave and Kumiko re-pack their life back into their car, we quickly caught a glance at Peter, Bjorn and John (thankyou Elissa!). With time to only see one song. Sophi was ecstatic it was her favourite! Content with hearing it we headed back to start the mission. It wasn't so bad and we were all gearing up for Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra followed by Chemical Brothers. What a finale!
However with two Japanese girls unable to drive for some unknown reason, we ALL got onto a bus to drop the gear off. To this day we still don't understand why this occurred. However Eri had missed the fact that we didn't stop at the carpark so hence ended back up at the train station which was 40 mins away! By now not too happy at all and freaking out at the thought of missing Chemical Brothers, thanks Guy for all the entertainment on the bus trip, who kept Sophi in complete hilarious delirium!
After having already missing the first half of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, desperation started to hit. With no buses stopping to pick us up at the carpark (which was 15 mins from the festival) James, Ami and Ko chan hastily jumped into a cab.....while the rest of us caught a lucky break! A van pulled over, which turned out to be an artist van! So we piled into this pimped up van with sleek wooden interior and lights panelled down the entire roof, we were heading back in style.
This happy ending to the most random detour was a blessing. In pumped moods we raced to Chemical Brothers JUST in time for the start.
The most memberable performance of all. Music, sound, screens and laser affects on the mountains that surrounded us is indescribable. To experience this with 6 close friends IN Japan made it that much better. An epic event.
After this amazing performance we headed to Juno Reactor followed by Chromeo. Both good, but nothing could compare with the mammoth performance we had just witnessed.
We chilled for a while awaiting the departure of the first bus at 5 am, a smart decision to try and be the first ones out of there to avoid crowds and heat. A very entertaining chillout session was had when John, a random backpacker Guy and Shell had met at Tokyo Station, very wastedly stumbled into a ditch where trees and tents were standing right beside a stage (a bizaar sight). In full view he dacked his pants to take a slash. Then to our unbelievable eyes starts to squat. Hilarious. He then stumbled off into the unknown.
We headed back to camp to pack and surprised ourselves by how quickly we achieved this. Then headed to the buses where a few other hundred of Japanese had the same idea to be an early bird.
Exhausted and passing out the entire trip home, it was heaven to be back in Tokyo to shower, sleep and eat a real meal.
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