My Birthday Present This Year? A Pain in the Neck

Babies danced in mud, laughing, waving, kicking, and, perhaps most troubling to me, sinking. Fortunately, their parents were there to pop them out, wipe the rain drops away from their yellow hats and set them moving again. My friend got kicked in the ear, another got kicked in the nose, and I got punched in the neck. Then, we high-fived and hugged the culprits. A man poured a beer on a stranger to the left, and the stranger mouthed ‘OH HELL YEAH!’ People said things in incomprehensible tongues and were rewarded with applause and cheers so thunderous you would have thought they had just won the Olympics, all of it.

Earlier in the day I waited 30 minutes in line for the privilege of using a toilet completely covered in shit. With every step I took towards the foul box I came a little bit closer to vomiting, but I liked it! Yet earlier, when I woke up, soaked head to toe in rain water as were all of my possessions, I smiled.

But you would too if you were at Fuji Rock ’09, palace of dreams, trying to raze a mountain range in Niigata, Japan, along with the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Oasis, Basement Jaxx, Weezer, JET, Animal Collective, Dinosaur Jr., Jimmy Eat World, Public Enemy, Ben Harper, Zazen Boys, and 150,000 other maniacs.

Of course it wasn’t all blood and baby carnage. On Saturday, when it wasn’t raining, I took my time strolling around the 7 scattered stages in the mountains and perusing the list of 200 bands scheduled to perform. I saw a wooden walkway leading into a darkness of dense trees and I took it. Dim light bulbs shielded by maps of famous cities (what the hell was Newark, New Jersey doing there?) ensured that I didn’t fall off the winding platform and into the abyss. While walking, some gentle, natural, tunes massaged my ears, urging me to pick up pace and follow. I did, and I was rewarded by a tiny little stage occupied by a tiny little woman making sounds that were too intriguing to pass by. Apparently others had also heard the intrigue because there they were, seated on tree stumps or with their backs against trees, trying to figure out how this one woman could have 4 different voices She was actually looping her voice and then singing over it, but whatever... Juana was her name, and the sounds were Spanish.

When I went to buy my lamb gyro from a vendor, I was taken aback when he, a very large black man, spoke to me in very soft Japanese. I ordered two gyros for 14 dollars and got three for 15. Whatever. Then, armed with three halves of our expected gyro consumption, my friend and I sat, legs dangling in a river that runs through the mountains and thus between stages. We ate and then washed off the mud that was caked to our legs and shoes. The water was cold, and even colder when two Japanese dudes came up behind us and pushed us into the river, laughing the whole time.

I met a Japanese guy who also loves JET (the band, not my job), and together we sang every single word of almost every single song (even the line that goes ‘don’t wanna hold hands or talk about our little plans ALL RIGHT), right in time with whoever is the lead singer of JET. When the last power chord dissolved into the rain, and my ears came out of shock, I expressed my enthusiasm appropriately (‘SHIT YEAH’ was I believe the route I chose) and asked him if he had ever seen JET live before. He shrugged his shoulders and in Japanese told me that he didn’t speak any English at all. Besides, of course, every JET song. Whatever.

The marquee names were on the big stage, the Green Stage, capacity 60,000. I was right up front for both Saturday and Sunday nights’ main events, Franz Ferdinand and Weezer, respectively. Franz Ferdinand absolutely rocked my face off. I liked the band alright before, but their live show was stupendous and the singer put on an impromptu techno dance party with his ‘techno machine’ (I don’t know the technical term) at the end of their set. When I say the live show was stupendous, I don’t mean it had explosions or dancers or bears on bicycles and tigers on trampolines or ablazing lions set to jumping through hoops. I mean it was just four guys who seemed genuinely happy to be there playing their hearts out, no gimmicks (yeah, I’m talking to you Bon Jovi, even though your concert was friggin’ awesome too, albeit perhaps a tad misty. You really don’t need fog for every song...)

Weezer was great too, and the best part was listening to 50,000 Japanese people become confused at the same time when a white guy sang them their national anthem with backing power chords. The singer speaks a good bit of Japanese because his wife is Japanese, apparently. Who knew? I didn’t.

But, goodness gracious, Basement Jaxx just might be the best thing I have ever done live, besides live. They had a stage show with dancers, costumes, stilts, giant bells, golden whistles and some nasty, nasty jams. In general, I like going to see live shows of bands I know, replete with repertoires I can sing along to. In the past, when I have gone to live shows of bands who I have never listened to before, I am not as invested, and so not so fulfilled. Not with Basement Jaxx, though. I only knew one of their songs, and vaguely at that, but I was jumping around like a bean the entire time, grinding on anything and anyone who would let me.

Fuji Rock is right up there with the best experiences I have had in Japan. The concerts were ridiculous, the food and water didn’t break the bank, the shit toilets were still always stocked with fresh toilet paper, the staff was smiley and helpful, and watching my favorite bands, many of whom I associate with powerful memories from back in America, play against the backdrop of the classic, mist-hidden, mysterious mountains of Japan was surreal. The combined effect was to make sleeping in a tent that we might as well have set up in a river seem like a five star hotel.