Forrest Brown

Another concert, more rain. Three of the bands that played at the Summer Sonic Music Festival in Tokyo played at a smaller music festival at the Taipei County Stadium in Taiwan. And like all the Japanese concerts I went to in the last month, it was poring rain.

The Taiwanese fans looked like they were really enjoying the concert, but they were also much less crazy then at a American or Japanese concert, no crowd-surfing or mosh-pits.

This last weekend was the Summer Sonic Music Festival. Like Fuji Rock, it’s a three day music festival with many great bands playing on a bunch of different stages. The Summer Sonic Festival takes place just outside of Tokyo in Chiba at the Makuhari Messe Convention Center and Chiba Marine Baseball Stadium, plus several stages around the area. To get to the festival was about a 30 minute train ride from Tokyo Station, so it’s a more convenient festival to get to. Like any other big event in Japan there were an amazing number of people and sometimes long lines, but not as bad as the lines at Fuji Rock.

Unfortunately my memory card in my camera died and I lost the photos I had taken on the first two days. But here’s some shots from the last day.

Poring rain in the afternoon at the Marine Stadium.
In the evenings for the bigger bands this stadium was packed to bursting.

I found Waldo rockin’ out in the rain to Jimmey Eat World at the Fuji Rock Festival.

This last weekend I went to the three day Fuji Rock Festival at the Naeba Ski Resort. Over 100,000 people attend the festival to enjoy seeing their favorite bands on the many stages scattered through the woods at the base of the Naeba Ski Resort. The festival is a little strangely named because it’s nowhere near Mt Fuji. The first year of the festival in 1997 was held near Mt Fuji, but after that is was moved to Naeba. I guess the promoters liked the name and kept it even with the new location.

Friday: Day One

The Naeba Ski Resort is sort of in the middle of nowhere. So taking the train to get there is a little bit of work. The closest train station is in Echigo-Yuzawa, from there you can catch a shuttle bus that takes about 40 minutes to take you the rest of the way to Naeba.

When I got to the Echigo-Yuzawa train station there was what had to have been the longest line I’ve ever seen of people waiting to take the shuttle bus to Naeba. The Station is pretty huge and the line wound back and forth through it.

I figured that I was getting close when line went down some stairs to where I thought we would catch the shuttle bus.

Unfortunately when I got to the bottom of the stairs there was more line, but I must be getting close, I could see the exit doors to where the buses were loading.

I finally get outside, ready to jump on a bus, but there is still more line outside. It’s like a horribly cruel joke or Japanese TV game show. From here I can see what part of the problem is, the staff are only loading one bus at a time even though there are several buses just setting there waiting.

I eventually was able to get on a shuttle bus and take the 40 minute ride to the Naeba Ski Resort. Annoyingly, when I get to Naeba, they are only unloading one bus at a time even though there is seven or eight buses full of people waiting for their turn to unload. Once off the bus I find another huge line to exchange my ticket for a wrist band.

Finally! After a hour and half train ride, two and half hours of standing in line and a 40 minute bus ride I’m about to finally enter the festival.

Oh No! Once inside the festival, there are even more lines inside. Because the different stages are scattered through the woods, there could be huge traffic-jams of people trying to get from one stage to the other.

Saturday: Day Two

The second day started with nicer weather. People were enjoying the sun and swimming in the little river that went through the festival area.

One of the things that many people like about the Fuji Rock Festival is that you can camp out at the festival location.

Sunday: Day Three

The last day, more bands, more rain.

This past weekend I went to the Punk Spring, punk rock music festival at Makuhari Messe in Chiba. Some of the bands that played are Sum 41, NOFX, Bad Religion.

The music festival was a really great time and I enjoyed all of bands that I saw. It was a huge crowd, I don’t think I’ve seen crowds the huge at a punk concert before. I was up towards the front most of the time and it was pretty packed. The crowd was doing some shoving, but not too crazy. I went into the mosh pit a bunch of times and it was pretty mellow compared to some in the US. People were just banging into each other and having a good time. Sometimes the mosh pits in the US get a bit hard core with people trying to hurt each other…those are no fun.

But I still managed to get banged up a bit, I think mostly because I was taller than most everybody around me, so my head stuck up. This is great for being able to see the concert, but bad because my head created an obstacle for the people who were crowd-surfing to run into. So, I was kicked in the side if the head by one crowd surfer. Smacked into by many more. And I think I broke my nose when another crowd surfer hit me from behind and caused my face to slam into the back of the head of the girl that was in front of me.

Towards the end of the concert some of the guys around me thought it would be funny to see me crowd surf (or maybe they were tired of me blocking their view), so they grabbed me and put me on top of the crowd to crowd surf. I thought for sure I was going to get dropped on my head, but I made it to the front of the stage. I’m way too big to be doing that kind of thing and I feel sorry for all of the people I squished.