Summer means music in Japan

Why would anyone contend with mud and rain, or broiling heat, along with dodgy food, dirty toilets and drunk yahoos, all just to hear a few bands? If you’ve felt the surge of neurotransmitters that comes from being a social animal amid a massive crowd in the mountains or by the beach, 100k watts of sound resounding through open spaces—then you know why outdoor music festivals can be addictive.

Japan’s current wave of events began in 1997 with the Fuji Rock festival. But the country boasts a long history of outdoor music fests reaching back through the Rainbow 2000 techno raves of the '90s to the reggae Japansplash parties of the '80s, and deeper into the past to the hard rock and jazz festivals of the '70s.

Many also note the link between Japan’s Western-style pop festivals and its rich history of extroverted matsuri. Fuji Rock makes this explicit by opening the event with a Thursday night bon odori dance festival before the bands take the stage.

This year’s 20th Fuji Rock Festival launches Friday, July 22 with headliners Sigur Rós from Iceland. The band pioneered a brand of swelling, orchestral rock that has made them a signature of their home country, and they’ve long filled halls to capacity in Japan. The Friday bill is filled out by the likes of English electronic music producer and singer James Blake, god of Jamaican dub Lee “Scratch” Perry and dependable domestic alternative music draws Boredoms and UA.

Saturday is headlined by West Coast slacker extraordinaire Beck, who at this writing had just posted "Wow,” a new single on which he opts for a more dance-minded atmosphere than last year’s Album of the Year Grammy-winning Morning Phase. Backing Beck are outfits including American alt-country group Wilco and post-jungle UK producer Squarepusher along with domestic trance rockers Rovo, coincidentally also celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Sunday features alt-rock stalwarts the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose frontmen singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea this month unleash the latest update on their atmospheric funk and balladry in the form their 11th studio album, The Getaway.

As Fuji veterans can attest, the most serendipitous joys at the festival can be found in the many excellent but obscure bands that promoter Smash deploys around the grounds on teensy stages like the Naeba Shokudo and Crystal Palace—the latter where you can take in a slew of fine acts without even paying the entrance fee.

Longtime Smash manager Johnnie Fingers says Fuji Rock has changed in many ways since its typhoon-slammed inception on the slopes of Mt. Fuji. “It’s three days with an extra day to set up camp, multiple stages and a much different experience,” he tells Japan Today. “Something we didn’t expect is that the different areas have their own communities. For example, the audience that hangs out at the Field of Heaven stays in that area for most of the festival because that’s their community and all their friends are there.”

He observes that, counterintuitively, the surfeit of digital content that has emerged since Fuji Rock began in 1997 has made the festival more influential as a tastemaker. “I think the audience depends on finding new music at Fuji Rock,” Fingers says. “CDs are more or less collectors items, and streaming makes it hard for a new artist to build a career. Record companies can’t or don’t invest in building careers as sales are bad. So the festival is a great time to party with friends and sample new music.”Summer Sonic One group that can be counted on to move merchandise is Radiohead, who helm Summer Sonic’s Tokyo-Osaka juggling act August 20-21. Thom Yorke and co.’s appropriately dreamy, angsty new studio effort A Moon Shaped Pool is the band’s sixth top 10 album.

The British group sits atop a pile of acts that mark a return to Summer Sonic’s rock roots after a tie-up with Live Nation that saw promoter Creativeman booking pop acts like Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas. Many of the rock groups are reliable draws like Rivers Cuomo’s nerd-rock outfit Weezer and SoCal punkers Offspring, both veterans of MTV’s '90s alt-rock heyday.

Fergie is along with Flo Rida, the hip-hop artist whose “My House” this year became his latest #1, and producer-to-the-glitterati Mark Ronson, one of the few truly pop acts on the bill.

The rest of the lineup features reliable draws including British electronica duo Underworld, who still command top billing in Japan despite sliding down the ranks elsewhere.

Those looking for new sounds should check out English psych-pop act The 1975 or arty Danish ele-pop chanteuse MØ, while old-time funksters can enjoy the likes of The Jacksons and Larry Graham and Graham Central Station.

At 17, Summer Sonic is, like Fuji, well-settled into its ways, which veterans can attest include negotiating the vast spaces of the Makuhari Messe convention center and frustrating treks or bus rides to the Marine Stadium main stage. These are counterbalanced by the salubrious Beach Stage—nice in the evening when temperatures ease—and first and foremost the festival’s reasonable prices.

To this writer’s tastes, the pre-festival Hostess Club All-Nighter looks perhaps the most tempting, with an indie rock dream bill beginning in the '90s with Dinosaur Jr. and proceeding to more recent acts including Animal Collective and Deerhunter. Domestic rock Sandwiched in between Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic is the all-Japanese Rock In Japan Fes. The event is the product of Rockin’On magazine, Japan’s defanged equivalent to Rolling Stone or NME, which has even spawned a style of corporate rock named for the magazine. Set in a scenic seaside park in Ibaraki Prefecture, RIJ is now a two-weekend affair that this year encompasses August 6-7 and 13-14. The bill tends to read like a who’s who of Japan’s Oricon charts, minus AKB and Johnnie’s type acts. This year think Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Akai Koen, The Hiatus, Babymetal, Kreva and the like. World music, jazz and techno Niche festivals that focus on specific genres provide some of Japan’s most intriguing musical experiences—plus less stress and crowds.

World music acolytes make the pilgrimage to Sado Island in the Japan Sea for the Kodo taiko drum troupe’s annual Earth Celebration (August 26-28). This year sees Kodo step off the main stage for participatory concerts held under the theme “Children of Taiko.”

September 2-4 welcomes jazz greats from around the globe for Tokyo Jazz. Held at the soaring Tokyo International Forum, TJ is a staid but glitzy affair overseen by public broadcaster NHK. The 2016 edition is headlined by mercurial pianist Herbie Hancock, who was originally hired by NHK to put his imprimatur on the event when it began a decade ago. Fellow jazz titans Pat Metheny, Kenny Baron and Christian McBride grace the bill, with local hero Hiromi Uehara on hand to provide her effusive, volatile brand of Oscar Peterson-inspired modernism.

Techno fanatics in the know generally make a point of avoiding generic EDM events such as Ultra, and point their steering wheels to Niigata, where Labyrinth occupies the same Naeba ski area where Fuji Rock is held on September 17-19. Expect three days of doof-doof pummeling through a massive Funktion One speaker system and cognoscenti techno DJs like Donato Dozzy and Peter Van Hoesen.

© Japan Today