Music on Nanikore

Ripping CDs for Fun

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:09:53 +0000

OK, maybe fun is not the right word, but over the last few years, I’ve been ‘digitally archiving’ a few items - it started with some old photo prints and negatives (that’s ongoing), and then I tackled my DVDs, and now I’m looking to sort my CD collection out (I think it’s ~400 discs).

So why do this? It’s a combination of convenience and sound quality really. I want to hear the music as I paid for it, but it’s a bit difficult to have all those CDs available around the house, and keep them away from the kids. Also, I have ripped all my CDs once, usually into iTunes, and over the years they’ve been in a smorgasbord of bit rates and formats, from 128kbps AAC and MP3, up to newer ones which are VBR ~256kbps AAC.

Now I’m doing this final rip to a lossless format, I can then simply transcode to whatever size/quality a target needs in the future, and enjoy that ‘CD quality’ of this master.

How am I doing this? For the rip, I’m using Exact Audio Copy which is a nice piece of freeware, and rips the audio from the disc using a variety of methods to try to make sure that what you get, as its name suggests, is an exact copy of the disc. It’ll then save this, with all the meta-data it looks up online as either .WAV files, or several other formats you can set up. I’m using the FLAC encoder, so it’s losslessly compressed, and is quite widely supported across players and platforms. This is also open source, so I should be able to play/convert it well into the future.

With even my lowly Windows machine, this takes only a few minutes per disc, including meta data tweaks I need for some of the non-English discs, so it’s more a case of just feeding the machine than anything else. As for size, FLAC, depending on settings, brings most of the CDs in at around 350MB, about half their native size, but obviously nowhere near the ~65MB AAC or MP3 would give you - alas the price you pay, but given disk space costs, it’s not a deal killer.

When at my PC, I tend to listen on my Sennheiser HD-555 headphones, via Foobar2000, which I find to be a nice, simple sound app. The hardware, for what it’s worth, is a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express card, which I find to sound better than the onboard Realtek codec, or the HDMI audio feed. On the Mac, it’s the built in Intel HD audio, which sounds acceptable, but the Creative card shows why there’s still a little more benefit in a separate sound card.

When not using the headphones, I have some ancient Sony SRS-Z750PC computer speakers which are fine for podcasts, background music and game effects, but aren’t great. In the future I may get a better set of speakers and even a separate amplifier for my computers, but that’ll have to wait a bit. (A real home music system for the living room is higher up the agenda!).

Is it worth the time? Actually, I think it has been - some of my very old rips always sounded a bit harsh, and going back to listening to the CD equivalent makes it all the more difficult to live with, and its been good to listen to all that music again.

Original Comments

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Terrano Spirit — 2013-04-17

I have been reading out a few of your posts and it’s pretty clever stuff. I will definitely bookmark your website.

New iPod 'classic' 80GB

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:03:32 +0000

I finally decided it was time to upgrade my 4.5 year old third generation iPod since Apple refreshed the lines last week. I plumped for the new ‘iPod Classic 80GB’.

Yes, it is weird having a new product so much better than the one I have, but be called a ‘classic’. I suppose this means it’ll disappear after this. Anyway, here’s a comparison with my old one - it’s a similar footprint, bigger colour screen and it’s much thinner.

I put some pics on flickr! too [now removed]. I’ll add a mini review to Brightblack after a couple of weeks with it. So far, it’s great.

Stadium Arcadium

Fri, 19 May 2006 15:14:05 +0000

I’ve been a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan for quite a long time now - about 15 years I think. I’ve always liked their funkier work more than their mid tempo balladry. That is, I listen to ’ Mother’s Milk’ and ’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ more than ’ Californication’ and ’ By The Way’, but I’m not slighting those albums either as they both have tracks in my top 50 most listened to. I was intrigued though that the new release " Stadium Arcadium" would be a double album given that that usually sends the signal of a desperate record company realising they don’t have enough for a single decent outing.

I was also wondering whether they were following their previous two (very similar) releases, or whether they’d be trying something else.

I’ve only had the CDs for a couple of days - listening to them in a hotel room in Hong Kong, and on my iPod coming back to Tokyo - and so far my fears don’t hold - both CDs are well worth listening to. RHCP seem to have tried to do a few more funky tracks here, as well as the more soulful recent stylings on this outing, but again the star is the John Frusciante on guitar. It’s more like a compendium of tracks from their whole history stylistically, and although the lyrics are somewhat cleaner than they used to be, some are just as nonsensical.

Pick up a copy - it’s a great summer set.

Takarazuka

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:30:32 +0000

Takarazuka is a theatre group, (though now almost a style of theatre in itself) which takes it’s name from it’s town of origin - Takarazuka - in Hyogo Prefecture. What differentiates Takarazuka, is that all of the roles are played by women. Stylistically, you might say it’s very ‘fairy-tale princess’ driven - lots of big frilly dresses, sequins and generally over-the-top performances. It also commands fanatical following from a mainly female fan base.

The production I went to see was the rather famous “Berusaiyu no Bara” (‘The Rose of Versailles’), allegedly based on some of the life of Marie Antoinette.

When you enter the Takarazuka theatre in Tokyo’s Yurakucho area, it’s all in theme - huge chandeliers, bentos being sold and adverts for every other production and TV show the actresses will be in. The first thing that will strike you is that not only will all the roles be played by women, but 99.9% of the audience are women too. I exchanged nods with the couple of other men in the cafeteria, both of whom were being led by their wives, and who were already making in-roads into some beers.

Since I’m probably only going to do this once, I was really pleased we got seats in the second row, although this is also kind of risky, as you see just how much make-up can be applied to human skin before it cracks.

To me, Takarazuka seems to have become one of those things where you don’t go and see a play/musical for the story-line, you go to see it for what it is - Takarazuka. The story-line was just pointless (really, Marie Antoinette as a nice fluffy person?), the costumes were huge and the general production values were about the same as most amateur dramatics shows; even the dancing was average, but then I must admit, it can’t be easy dancing in huge ballroom dresses which must’ve weighed more than I do. However, the producers know their audience, and they play to them 100%. I suspect that less than 5% of the audience were at their first Takarazuka - I suspect for many it’s a very regular thing.

Though I could follow most of the plot quite easily, I did get one bit wrong - I thought when Marie as a child speaks to her doll ‘Stefan’, I thought she was alluding to another character we were yet to see. Nope, she was indeed just chatting to her doll, though I was correct in my belief that Stefan would get a bigger role, and he makes another triumphant appearance just before Marie’s death. Don’t worry though, the plot really isn’t important here.

What it does well is it’s complete fairy-tale nature and melodramatic over acting. The famous death scene in the second half goes on and on for a few minutes. Poor Andre takes about ten bullets before he (she) finally slumps over a Parisian bridge (which wobbled as he/she did so, though whether that was due to poor construction or just the weight of the over-acting is difficult to say).

At this point I didn’t know whether to laugh or not, it was hilarious, but the woman next to me had her handkerchief out and was crying … Andoooreeeee … Osukaaaaa!

Like many of these kind of things, after you get over the ‘What the hell is going on?’ feeling from the first five minutes, and suspend disbelief a bit, you do actually start liking it, but just when you’re comfortable with the format, something odd happens.

Antoinette is executed, then her ghost ascends to heaven (unlikely but anyway), then, the stage is full of a lit stair case with can-can dancers coming down it… it’s hard to see where the plot goes then as there is a ten minute set of dance numbers featuring flamenco and more contemporary numbers.

In summary then, it is what it is, and it is worth doing just once, as long as you treat it as a musical revue, rather than a serious dramatic or musical production, as it likely isn’t. It is though something that is just as Japanese as Kabuki is (and that being an all male cast), and really should be on any ’to do’ list that has Kabuki on it. It’s probably the biggest piece of ‘cosplay’ (costume play) going.

And yes, I did nod off for a minute or two during one of the slower ‘plot explanation’ scenes, and was woken by women in big dresses spinning around not five metres from me!

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Sharon — 2006-06-24

Hi there. Rose of versailles was also my first takarazuka show back in 2001 and i agree some parts WERE quite boring if you didn’t understand a lot of japanese.

I think at the end of the production, Marie antoinette was just ascending the stairs to get executed. It wasn’t her ghost rising up to heaven.

graham / nanikore admin — 2006-06-25

Thanks for the comment Sharon.

I was actually surprised by the level of the Japanese; I thought it would be much harder than it was, but I think my problem was that I was trying to merge it with my knowledge of the French revolution, and undertandibly that wouldn’t work as Rose of Versailles is more of a fairytale than a historical drama. Also, the occassional sequences in Osaka dialect threw me a bit too!

That ending I admit I lost patience a little bit; it seemed so diconnected from the rest of the play. I suppose the question is whether I’d pay to see another!

Osukaaaaa…..Andoreeeeee!!

Southern All Stars Live 3

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 11:15:16 +0000

It seems every other post here is about the Southern All Stars. Well, on December 30th (2005), we went to see them again at the Yokohama Arena, and again, they were absolutely fantastic. So, from having never seen them before, in the the second half of 2005, we saw them three times, each time in different settings: Rock in Japan Festival, the Tokyo Dome, and now at the Yokohama Arena.

Whilst the songs for the latter two were pretty similar, it was great (again) seeing them in a smaller venue, and from a different angle, to really appreciate the live show, and really, there aren’t many bands nowadays who can keep a place moving for three hours solid.

The question then might be why we saw two stadium gigs in a months, and the answer is because we applied for both dates in a kind of raffle, and their tickets sell out within a day usually, and so we were really pleased we actually got allotted two sets of tickets. Also, as I understand it, they often do their live shows at the end of the year.

Southern All Stars Live

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:35:29 +0000

OK, I admit this is a bit late, but last week (Dec. 1st), we went to the Tokyo Dome to see Southern All Stars live, and really, it was probably the best live gig I’ve seen - ever.

Almost three hours of continuous music, by probably Japan’s best band. Complete with an amazing light show, screens, dancers, fireworks and balloons big enough to be out of ’ The Prisoner’, the whole night was just amazing.

For me, it was great that they included a lot of my favourite songs, including the single ‘Bohbo No.5’, complete with hilarious animations running around the back screens, ‘Rock and Roll Superman’, and ‘Yellow Man’, which is the first time I’d seen that live, and it really is a great live track. That made up for a lack of ‘Manpi no G-spot’ in the set though!

Compared to the previous live show at ‘Rock in Japan’, and despite it’s length and the size of the hall, this seemed a little bit more ‘for the fans’, with Kuwata, the lead singer, showing why he’s not only a good vocalist, but also a consumate showman, chatting with the crowd and generally setting the mood. It also let the band put some stunning visuals on some moving video walls, from patterns, to animations to photos, illustrating each song, and doing some of their slower, more melodic songs.

Fortunately for us, we’ll see them *again* on Dec. 30th in Yokohama, but it seems that generally, it’s really hard to get tickets, because they don’t tour that often anymore - indeed Kuwata lamented that at 49 and a smoker, he’s not sure how much longer he can do it (Though as he runs around the stage dressed as a schoolboy, you’d never guess his age!).

For those who have no idea who these people are, I really recommend buying or renting the new double CD “Killer Street”, which is a combination of some reworked old songs, and a lot of new tracks.

Personally, I’ve been really impressed with them, and it’s great to see a band who can put tens of thousands of fans in an arena and do a long, fantastic show. Roll on Dec. 30th!

Rock in Japan '05

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 13:16:40 +0000

Just a week after 3 days at the Fuji Rock Festival, yesterday we headed out to Ibaraki for a day at the Rock in Japan festival, mainly to check out the Southern All Stars who put on an absolutely fantastic gig. If you haven’t heard or seen them, they really are worth a trip.

No full pics, but take a look at the flickr! stream [Added photos here as my Flickr! account is long since gone]. It was very hot and sunny though, which made a change. We spent an hour playing on the PSP and eating iced noodles in the trees with a lot of other people trying to find some shade between sets.

I’ll tack a full review onto the Fuji Rock one if I ever finish it.

2005 Rock in Japan Festival

Fuji Rock Festival '05

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 03:04:59 +0000

We got back late last night from three great days and nights at the Fuji Rock at Naeba in Niigata prefecture. I’ll try to upload a full review later, but for now, here are some photos.

2005 Fuji Rock Festival

AirTunes

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:11:27 +0000

Last week I bought myself an Apple Airport Express. It’s a fairly regular wireless 802.11b/g access point amongst other wireless functions, it’s very small, stylish box, and, being from Apple costs a bit more than other slightly less well designed rival products.

The only wireless product I own right now is my PSP. So now I can get game downloads on my PSP! Great! Hang on, I could do that from hotspots around Tokyo anyway. So why?

Actually, both of the above, but also because of Airtunes. Airtunes is an extension of iTunes which basically pumps out a stream to Airport Express which then pumps it out through it’s small optical/3.5mm jack socket on one of it’s sides and from there into the back of my stereo. The benefit is that in my apartment there’s a wall mounted network port just behind my TV / stereo which my Airport Express is wired into. Thus, I can send my huge iTunes library to my stereo for almost 10 days of continuous songs!

Super Freak Out

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 10:55:38 +0000

I’m rather embarrassed that I didn’t post this earlier. Last Friday was FreakOut 3: Super Freak Out. If you haven’t attended one, you really should.

Basically it’s this: a bunch of artists and musicians get together for a night and put on a great show. Simple right! The band Sonica are the anchor act, playing a jam like fusion of funk soul and jazz, and in between sets they encourage open mic jamming, and audience participation drums and percussion. That’s not all though - there was Kazu, the mime artist, and local artist group ‘Gravity Free’ who did some great artwork whilst the band played and Goro came in to do a didjeridu (spelling from website) set, which was just incredible. It was a great atmosphere, with everyone relaxing on the comfy furniture, chatting to new friends and generally relaxing. Hopefully some people were enjoying some of the visuals I was helping get on the to big wall projectors. It’s based at Super Deluxe in Roppongi, and no sooner had we all woken up on Saturday afternoon, than mention was being made of another gig next February, which we’re all hoping will be even better.

Odd Quotes of the Week

Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:31:25 +0000

Well, it’s been another week and there’s been a lot in the news as always, but a couple of quotes struck me over the last few days, especially a couple I saw whilst browsing through BBC’s News pages.

The first up is an award to the Japanese government official Hiroyuki Hosoda, for a great ‘stating of the obvious’ regarding the incursion of a Chinese submarine into Japanese waters:

“We are chasing after the submarine, which is underwater,” Mr Hosoda told a news conference on Thursday, adding the vessel was heading north.

So that’s clearer then.

On a much more tragic note, rapper Russell Jones (aka ‘Ol’ Dirty Bastard’) sadly died in the studio whilst recording his comeback album, prompting a rather sad eulogy from his mother:

“To the public he was known as Ol’ Dirty Bastard, but to me he was known as Rusty. The kindest most generous soul on earth.”

Old Audio Laid to Rest

Sat, 13 Nov 2004 06:34:20 +0000

The digital music revolution, many believe, was sparked by the MP3 format, and is now transforming into a DRM/paid for download market of iPods, Windows Media, AAC and a whole raft of other things which may or may not be a good thing for artists and home users and their rights.

However, it was interesting to me in the last few days to see 2 old apps from simpler days effectively disappear from active development - Winamp and Audion. Actually, I should qualify that - Winamp will continue, but all of the original team has now left the parent company and it has been in a state of lacklustre development for a while. Audion, on the other hand, has been officially put into retirement and is now officially freeware.

I used Winamp in about 1998 when I was working for a ‘digital media’ company [sic] - with it’s llama themes demo track and it’s different skins Winamp really was a nice way to listen to MP3 and CDs at the time on Windows - add in visualisations and it was a nice little app. Unfortunately, it (Nullsoft) was bought by AOL and it seems the bloat began - the small app added more and more windows and popups. Version 3 wasn’t as good as 2 and as if to admit this, version 4 was skipped and the next one was (to me) the equally disappointing version 5. Added to this that other players in the Windows market such as Microsoft, Real, MusicMatch and even Apple with their iTunes had better apps it was obvious that Winamp had become an add-in to AOL and not much else, as mentioned here as the last Nullsoft person has now left the building.

Audion was around since OS 8 (and still works on 9 I believe), and I used it a lot, and even licensed version 1 - it was a nice app, and the company who made it - Panic - are a great bunch of coders who have released a lot of very cool applications. I bought it, and the N2MP3 encoder and between the two of them, put in as many MP3s from live recordings I made in Japan’s live bars as I could on a Powerbook 190 (68K processor running at 66MHz on a 1GB hard drive). I liked Audion - it’s faces were cool and it did what you wanted - had simple functionality and was nice to look at, but faded into the background when you needed it to. What happened? Well, the long and the short of it was iTunes, the iPod and the Music Store. Panic founder Cabel Sassar has written an amazing page on this situation, and I encourage everyone to read it - and to click on the pop-up links - there’s some great things in there. Ultimately, iTunes and it’s iPod and store were just too big a juggernaut to overcome. I commend Panic for retiring the app though to conserve a small company’s resources to move on and live to fight another day. Another Panic person, Steve Frank has put some more thoughts on his Blog here.

Ultimately it shows how a market place can change and how competition truly works. Winamp I think was the victim of a corporation and a startup just not understanding each other, whereas Audion seems to have been the victim of the market convergence between a player, an encoder, hardware and a music shop.

Son Of Freakout

Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:26:38 +0000

Last Saturday saw a bit of a new experience when my friend Ryo and myself “VJ’d” the ‘Son of Freakout’ night being held in Super Deluxe near Roppongi. It was a funky night of jam music from Sonica, live art by Ponzi, some performance art and general chilling out.

The visuals were mainly psychedelic video mixing and visualisations pumped out the back of the PC I dragged across Tokyo. I’d never done this kind of thing before, and it was all thrown together in a couple of days, but generally it all went well - with the exception of someone spilling beer all over the video mixer, which meant we only had the computer for a while as it dried out! I even managed to gt all the photos into the mix that I was hoping to.

I have to say that it was a lot of fun, and hopefully we’ll be doing it again in December at ‘Super Freakout". Next time though I’ll be sure to remember to take more equipment, as we were missing a couple of cables we hoped would be there, but weren’t (so next time we can get those snowboard DVDs in the background!).

Typhoon Beach Party

Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:22:07 +0000

It rained. It really rained.

As I mentioned a while ago, last Saturday was the Kamakura Beach Party. Unfortunately, a typhoon rolled into town and swept the beach. However, if anyone thinks this may have brought the whole thing to a standstill, they’d be wrong. The music played, the lights in the beach huts stayed on and the rum and cokes had just enough coke in them that you couldn’t taste it.

Let’s face it, if people are going to make their way down to the beach in a typhoon, they’re pretty serious about having a party, and that was definitely felt - the rain added to fun, as we dodged the leaks in the roof, and the bands made sure all their gear was dry. Over 150 people turned up, and I for one had a great time. Make-a-Wish Japan also made some money and when you can have a good time, and make some money for children so they can have a good time, then that’s a pretty decent day out in my opinion.

I can’t wait for next year, but maybe then, I’ll move out of that comfy deck chair I was in a little more often…

Kamakura Beach Party 2004

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:55:51 +0000

Just a quick advanced post to those who are interested in going to the 2004 Kamakura Beach Party on August 28th (Saturday). I’ve been speaking to event organiser Brent o’Leary a lot over the last few days, and the flyers are now ready, and pretty much all the information is on the website.

The Kamakura Beach Party is an annual charity event, with all proceeds going to Make-a-Wish Japan and also just happens to be a great live event down on the beach. So get your t-shirt/bikini/umbrella and get down there.

Tickets are available on the door (men: 3500yen, ladies 2,500yen).

Original Comments

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Rudolf — 2004-08-16

Alright, looks nice, the flyer does. Can you send me a few copies?

Blast!

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 02:12:04 +0000

Last night we decided to have a more civilised Friday night and went down to the Bunkamura Orchard Hall in Shibuya and checked out Blast!.

Blast! is a brass band/percussion dance ensemble meaning people are dancing with their instruments, doing ballet inspired dance and all manner of things on the stage (and if you remember to look) in the boxes at the back of the stage. It was all very impressive, with some great snare drum pieces, and a lot of colour. It was hard to watch all the movement at once - one minute there would be two people on stage, next there would be ten, all moving around, as all the players quietly come on, perform, and then leave the stage again. It was definitely a great night out for some live music - especially if you’re a brass or percussion fan. Musical styles went from Ravel’s Bolero (amazing) to Jazz to taiko-esque drumming and the musicians not only play the instruments and dance, but could really draw the crowd in. It certainly wasn’t cheap (our tickets cost 9,800 yen each I think) but I must say that I actually thought it was worth it for for about 110 minutes of performace over two acts.

I think all the Shibuya shows for August are sold out, but there may be tickets left for the week’s worth of shows at the Kokusai Forum next month. Go on, treat yourself!

Summer Sonic 2004

Sun, 08 Aug 2004 02:00:40 +0000

Yesterday was day 1 of the 2004 Summer Sonic music festival in Chiba. It was a great line up and is similar to an urban Fuji Rock festival, as half of the stages are indoor at the Makuhari Messe the rest outdoor in the Chiba Marine Stadium, or on the beach. In an added twist, the two-days are swapped with a twin venue in Osaka, so Chiba’s Saturday bands play Sunday in Osaka.

We spent a couple of hours checking out some of the smaller bands at the indoor stage, but they weren’t as interesting as the smaller bands from FujiRock. Then we headed out to the sweltering Marine Stadium to watch some of the bigger bands.

Pennywise were on when we arrived, and they did an OK set. I was looking forward to seeing The Darkness, but unfortunately they cancelled earlier that morning so the organisers got another band in to play - old British rockers The Wildhearts, who I haven’t seen live for about a decade, but I have to say that even though they’d only landed at Narita a few hours before, and minus a lot of their own stage gear they actually did a damn good set.

Inaba (one half of the group B’z) did a great set too - the guy is pretty good on stage, and mixed with rock and more blues influenced songs. Next up were Canadian band Sum41 who I’d never heard of, but to their credit they did a pretty good set, with some good festival music. Then the first of the ‘headlines’ came on - Avril Lavigne - but I was a bit disappointed - it all sounded and looked like it was straight off the album to me - I’m not saying it wasn’t good, but it was a bit formulaic, especially for a festival.

Finally the day’s headliner came on - Green Day, and they didn’t disappoint - a rocking 90minutes of fun and good music and stage work. They did many of their top songs, and now just from the last ‘Warning!’ album. They also got a guy out of the crowd to play guitar on one of the songs. All in all, it was a great set, complete with a couple of fun cover versions, ending on Queen’s ‘We are the Champions’.

The venue itself was very good indeed, but suffered from a complete lack of decent signposting and staff who knew where things were, but overall summersonic is a great festival to check out. Is it better than FujiRock? Maybe not - it feels more ‘corporate presentation’ than festival, but it’s proximity to Tokyo (and Osaka) make it a pretty simple way to see quite a few bands over a weekend.

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Tohoku Ben — 2004-08-13

Hey - I checked out the first day of SS as well. Pretty much agree. Avril was a disappointment - Zero crowd interaction; she didn’t seem to have a care of where she was or who she was playing too. Was basically already headed off stage by the last cymbal crash. Who knows, maybe she was having a bad day, but I think fans expected more. The All American Reject who opened on the Marine Stadium were GREAT. Good tunes, good repoire with the crowd; impressive. As was Sivertide. Not sure if you caught these guys or not, as you said you headed to Pennywise; we left Pennywise and headed indoors, and just caught the last tune of ST. REALLY impressed. SAD SAD SAD that I missed their set. Kind of straight ahead, 70’s style rock. What I heard reminded me of the Black Crowes first album (in the sence of classic, olderstyle rock). Solid singer, rock/blues riffed guitarist, and they don’t even have a full length album out. They were almost as excited as the crowd; singer thanked them all afterwards, brought out the previous band and thanked them, then came back onstage 3 times while the crew was taking down just to video tape the audience, toss some EP CD’s to the crowd, then finally to toss his vest into the crowd. Check out silvertidemusic.com - looking foward to their album.

Yes, was also d’pointed that the Darkness in all of their falsetto-hood cancelled as well - they would have been good to see.

Greenday was impressive as well. I’ve liked their hits, but wouldn’t consider myself a CD buying fan. They level-up a few notches for sure though - GREAT interaction with the crowd; smooth set. To hear the whole stadium singing, and then chatting OOOOOOOooooooo for the encore was something else. The guy-out-of-the-crowd-stand-in guitar’s song-ending guitar jump was classic, and finishing with Queen’s WRTChampions, and then fireworks; will see them live again if given the chance.

graham (nanikore) — 2004-08-13

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the posts!

Yeah, the temperature has been pretty hot this summer. I’m hoping for a matching cold winter for the snowboarding, but I’m not sure if it follows. I’ve been using the fan where possible, but the humidity is what seems to get me.

I’m wondering if my electricity bill goes up when they do some more checks on the powerstations and realise they all need rebuilding. I was pleased actually at SummerSonic that I didn’t get any sunburn for being out all day (factor 50 and a good hat!). Can’t wait till the end of the month for the Kamakura Beach Party.

Graham

Fuji Rock Festival 2003

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 02:45:17 +0000

OK, the Fuji Rock Festival 2003 was absolutely amazing. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a weekend music festival, and this was as good as I remember. I actually went to the Fuji Rock Festival since, and it just seems to get bigger and better - building facilities and stages, without sacrificing the overall feel - the all night DJ sessions and lights, artists, sculptures…and rain made it a great event.

The camping area was pretty good, and I have to say that though the toilet queues were long, no one can say that they didn’t try. There was lots of food to be had too - from Fish and Chips to Ramen to Curry (lots of curry actually).

As I mentioned Asian Dub Foundation were great, delivering great music and a rant about the occupation of Iraq. Primal Scream were awesome as ever, lots of energy, and Saturday night rounded off with Bjork and a cool light show and fireworks. I have to say that I thought Primal’ would have been a better closer, but Bjork seems a bit more famous here - if only for her film role last year rather than as ex-Sugarcubes/solo singer.

The rain was falling well from about 7, but most people had given up on staying dry anyway, so it didn’t seem to spoil it for anyone. Of the bands we saw, it was a great place to hear new stuff. On Sunday we started off with a young Japanese band called Sugardonuts, who, despite the drummer’s kick drum breaking, put in an amazing show in front of the handful of people awake at 11am! We took the opportunity to walk around the huge site, try some food and see the smaller acts on the side stage, and a lot of them were really good - no one can say this festival was just a couple of big names - the support was great too.

We were impressed by a new band Evanescence to the point that we bought their CD on the way out. We ducked out of the Coldplay gig to go and see Anthrax on the second stage, and I’m glad to say I did - they rocked like never before, ripping through a greatest hits set including ‘Bring the Noise’. As we made our way back afterwards to the crowds at the main stage in front of Coldplay we knew we made the right choice - I like Coldplay, but at this kind of festival, you need a few bands to kick up some noise. Finally, we listened to a bit of Steve Winwood to chill out before putting the tent away and making our way back to the last Shinkansen. Tired, wet and a little sun burned.

Despite it’s name, the festival is held yearly in Naeba, in the mountains north of Tokyo - it’s 75 min. shinkansen ride, followed by a 40 min. bus ride, so not too bad. The scenery is beautiful, and makes a welcome change from Tokyo - if you’re in Tokyo in the summer and want to get out - get to the Fuji Rock Festival.

2003 Fuji Rock Festival