Adventures in Japan

The Catch Uppening, Part Deux Squared: Really Late (Now With Spell-Checkening!!!)

Day 2 wasn't nearly as packed, music wise. We didn't really have a lot of hard choices to make. Plus I got to spend the whole of the day with Carla, with one exception. There wasn't anyone we really wanted to see for the first few hours so we poked our heads in to all sorts of bands. The Subways, The Little Flames, and Louis XIV were all unremarkable, save for the fact that I am now remarking upon them.

Do you smell chocolate? We returned to the scene of yesterday's longest line. The line was somewhat shorter so we thought we'd give it a boo. The line was for the Sponsors' tent. Bank cards and booze companies and MTV and such. And Concert Merchandise. Except not so much of that last thing. This was the morning of the second day of the concert and there was literally nothing good to buy. Nothing. All that was left was overpriced polo shirts. Nothing says Rock like a polo shirt.


What really sucks about the lack of cool stuff is that I saw people wearing a really groovy concert T. It had the Virgin Mary on the front. And a prayer and blessing for all the bands and volunteers and fans who make Summer Sonic such a special occasion. Sacrilicious. So we were none too pleased with the lack of merch.


The plan had been to take in a bit of Bennie K before heading over to Orange Range. That plan changed when we saw the massive line of people waiting to see Bennie K. They were playing in one of the smallest venues at the Festival. Not a smart move by the organizers. Carla went off to see all of Orange Range's set and I remained in line. I really like Bennie K. Their music is just so dang happy! I waited in line at least half an hour, slowly making my way forward. It drizzled a bit. As I got closer and closer, the music became more and more clear. So that was nice. Finally, after they had been playing for quite a while, I got in! I walked through the door and into a singing, jumping, screaming mob. The music was way too loud, and I couldn't really see the stage, but the energy in that place, the VIBE man, was just unreal. It was overwhelming. It was fantastic. It was my favourite song. And it was the last song of their set. Best two thirds of a song I heard all weekend.


Orange Range was also a very good Japanese rock band. Maybe slightly less rocky and more urban. The kind of band who has both a singer and a guy who talks in a way that suggests rap but isn't quite rap. They were better than I make them sound. Best part of their set, though, was the little girl who sat up on her dad's shoulders the whole time. She tried to rock out like everyone else around her. That was SO CUTE!


Boy? They're from Canada.


The main reason we watched Boy was because The Arcade Fire played after them. I mentioned before how we listened to some of the music of some of the bands playing here. Well I just could not get enough of The Arcade Fire songs that I managed to find. It appeared that I was not alone. Right after Boy finished the place started to really fill up. Mainly with white people. Day 2, y'see, was a Sunday. Way less working to be done on a Sunday. One of the white people in the crowd was a very nice lady from Seattle. I call her a lady, because she was (and is) but she looked to me to be younger than I. That was (and is) SO not the case. She taught in Japan ten years ago. See now, I actually think she might have said twenty but there is no way that could be true. Anyhoo, she was back in Japan visiting her husband's family. And attending Summer Sonic. For free. In Seattle, she works for KEXP radio. Check them out at KEXP.org.


Maybe I should get around to talking about the show. It was very, very good. The lady from KEXP told me before the show began that this would be the best show at the Festival. She was not wrong. First of all, there are a fair few members in the band. Not as many as Aka Inu, but still a bunch. More than the liner notes to the CD would lead you to believe. The KEXP lady told us that that is because Arcade Fire keeps adding members. They let their friends join. Even if they ain't so good at the music and/or the playing of it. That? Thas cool.


Wow, I still haven't gotten around to talking about the show. It was amazing. But that might have had something to do with the audience. Everyone was really excited to be there, at least everyone near us was. We all applauded after the violinists tuned their instruments. We were ready to rock. Do you know the music of The Arcade Fire? Of course you do. Well, they started with Wake Up. On the album, there is a little bit of a build up and then just joyous yelling. They skipped the build up, all the members just yelling at the top of their lungs. And we, the audience were yelling along with them. Yelling is good, it's cathartic and communal. Not Screaming, not screeching, that would come later, during Slipknot.


But yeah: yelling. Every member put everything they could into every song. They didn't sing real close to the mic so they didn't have to sing all that loud. Hells no! They stood well back and just F'n gave 'er! They didn't just play their instruments, they punished them. There were at least three broken drumsticks during the first song alone. And I don't think it was just the drummer who broke them. The thing about having so many people onstage is that they aren't always all needed for every song. Oh yeah, most of the members can play multiple instruments, so they would often change up in between songs. That was neat. But sometimes there was not much for this one guy to do. I shall call this man Crazy. During the second song of the set he started climbing the scaffolding alongside the set and smashing it with drumsticks. While wearing a motorcycle helmet.


During the second last song he started destroying stuff, he totally took out a high hat. You know, that thing that soups up the tempo. He was on a roll. He tried to go solo. At least I think that's what he was trying, he had half the high hat tied to a cloth and was swinging it around like a crazy man. I think he was trying to kill his bandmates. It was all a tad surreal. After the last song, the lead singer just kinda walked off the front of the stage. There was a massive blare of feedback. All sorts of stagehands ran to see what the hell happened. No one in the band seemed all that concerned. I could have reached out and touched the lead singer. I didn't. He was very sweaty looking.


Instead, I took a picture. I could have just taken a normal picture, but that ain't the way I roll.

In the interest of non interesting stuff, here are my original notes for the show:
Arcade Fire YES!! Crazy dude who liked to climb and hit things YES! I was absolutely nuts about their music before, listened to it all the time. Now that I legally own their CD, I listen to it less. Because I've seen them live man, it's just so much better. Yell along.


Oh yeah, we also saw TV on the Radio. They were way better live. I was unimpressed with the songs I heard from their CD, but it was a totally different experience live. It was like a completely different band was playing their songs. Really good. And this dude had awesome hair.


Echo and the Bunnymen was just sad. They were all old and fat and complaining that the lights were too bright.


Slipknot: kinda cute. The songs were just craggy walls of angry noise, but it was the banter in between the songs that did it for me. The lead singer would start out with "my friends..." then swear for two uninterrupted minutes, flip everyone off and they'd start the next song. At the end of the last song, he fell over and the audience revived him with their clapping. Like a fairy, a rotted, dead fairy. With a potty mouth.




NIN got better as you got closer. Well, to be more true to what happened, they seemed to get less compelling the farther we got away from them. We wanted to get a slight lead on the mass of people that would inevitably rush for the train, so we watched the last half of the show from right near the exits. The first half was better. Plus they played a fair bit of new stuff during the second half. I don't know the new stuff. But I screamed along to the stuff I knew. I once was an angry young man.



After the show Ben asked us if we wanted to hit Rock Rock. Carla had to work the next day, I did not. Ben had been a trooper all weekend, as had his sis. They had gone to Rock Rock every night. That blows my mind. We couldn't actually get in to Rock Rock when we got there. It was too full of band members. So we and a bunch of other regulars just hung out on the street below, drinking beers bought at nearby combinis. We were all having a grand time.

Mayhaps too grand a time. I kinda forget what all I drank but I do remember that I drank something different each time. Not that smart an idea. I remember that a lot of band folk split from Rock Rock cuz it was too crowded. Ben tells me I met the manager of the band Boy (from Canada) and held an intelligent conversation with him. I, and you, will have to take Ben's word for that. I don't remember that at all. I remember that we finally made it in to Rock Rock at around 4:30 in the morning and that I woke up on the street outside Rock Rock at a little before 6.



The end.