Arctic Monkeys will perform at Osaka. ARCTIC MONKEYS WILL PERFORM AT OSAKA. Although I had various reasons for visiting Japan and its famous cities, Arctic Monkeys performing at Summer Sonic was probably the biggest selling point. Unable to go to Lollapalooza this year with my friends, I had to make up for it with one of Japan’s finer music festivals.
Summer Sonic runs over Saturday and Sunday every mid-August. For this year, the weekend fell in place with my vacation period between quarters. Outside of the whole money argument, there was very little reason why I shouldn’t go to Japan and Summer Sonic. So I did.
And boy, was it awesome!
Day 1
Wake up, grabbed some breakfast from a convenience store, got to 桜島駅 (사쿠라지마 역, Sakurajima Station), caught the shuttle bus to Mashima Baseball Stadium, and just made it in time to catch A Great Big World performing “Say Something” sans Christina Aguilera, which really didn’t take anything away from the beauty of that song. At every stage they check your ticket wristband before you enter but to be honest, the security was pretty lax and let people get through that were out there, making the festival already a bit more enjoyable. Nevertheless, I made sure to get a wristband and head to the large indoor stage to see the last bit of Circa Waves before Charli XCX made the place popping. She even performed songs she co-wrote (hint, hint, “Fancy” and “I Love It”) without her other peeps.
I actually Facebooked a German med student that was interning in Japan on going to the festival. We met up as Charli XCX was closing and befriended two Japanese girls from 名古屋 (나고야, Nagoya) that just arrived. The lack of Japanese I suffered was relieved with all these new characters. As soon as they got wristbands, we went over to see Little Mix perform all their hits. I did this mostly because Doris, a friend of mine from Yale, actually likes them and showed me one of their videos. It was definitely a groovy filler.
The girls from Nagoya actually came for one person, 矢沢 永吉 (E. Yazawa). I guess if you could imagine musicians like Elton John, Iggy Pop, and Steven Tyler morphing into a Japanese guy, you would get E. Yazawa. He had a rockier sound but pulled out two ballads during the middle bits if his set list. To my surprise, he was definitely one of the most enjoyable acts, I saw.
We left to chill down with some Metronomy in the indoor stadium, which shielded us from the perpetually on-again-off-again downpour over the festival. Near the latter end of their act, hunger called and we appeased, mostly because the people I met wanted to see Avril Lavinge.
With my ice cream devoured, I was set to fulfill the dream of every angsty 14-year-old’s dream by seeing Avril Lavinge perform live. I really wish I hadn’t. I used to think she was pretty cool but damn she is far from a performer. Albeit the sound system having problems, she had a good voice and pretty much failed to use it. She also just didn’t show any emotion throughout the entire performance. Even when she sang “Smile”, she did an empty spiel and then turned around to ask her drummer something.
By some sheer miracle, I finally convinced the Miar, the German med student, to get out so we can see Pentatonix. As a Yalie, I was a little obliged to see them but I was also a pretty good fan (I also did it in large part for my old suitemate James). Pentatonix delivered throughout their set list. Ironically enough, Pentatonix might have heard how bad Avril was since the song they planned as soon as we got there was “Natural Disaster”. Damn, they just killed it song after song. I really enjoyed their rendition of “Royals” but their ability to perform “The Evolution of Music” was very impressive.
Last act for the night was one I actually didn’t plan on going to but decided to anyway after we met Christian, a Melbounre-bred man working at Universal Studios Japans’ Harry Potter World (a mouthful, yes). Something about Queen performing without Freddie Mercury just didn’t feel right. Yeah, Adam Lambert has an incredible voice but Freddie just sounded godly on record. I didn’t know if I would enjoy him as much as I did those old tunes.
He surprised me.
Opening up with “Fat Bottomed Girls”, I was already less skeptical. Song after song, he just kept on giving out energy. He even did a classic rock star move and spilled champagne on the audience. What I was more impressed by was with the respect he gave towards Freddie. For the tribute portion of the performance, he stayed out of it so Brian May and Roger Taylor could honor Freddie as the remaining members of the old vanguard. Soon thereafter, they blew my mind with a cross performance for “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Adam singing the start and end and a video of Freddie doing the middle portion. Before he show ended, they even performed my favorite “Radio Gaga”. Lastly, you know it isn’t a Queen concert unless “We Are The Champions” is done at least once.
Just when I thought the night would be over, we ended up meeting some kiwis and another German that wanted to good off before the late night shows. We grabbed a snack together and got to know each other and actually got into a loaded conversation on phonetics. How this happened, I don’t know but it was awesome. Before I left to try and attempt to head back to my AirBnB, we played a German drinking game known as “Flunkyball”, where two groups stand opposite of each other with their respective full can of beer and have empty beer bottles (just a few) in the middle of them; the object of the game is to knock down these bottles and when you knock down one your side can drink as fast as they can until the other team fixes the bottle and returns to their side. Whichever side finishes drinking first wins, while the other side must chug their remains. Fortunately, my side won as we parted ways.
Unfortunately, I faced my first bit of transportation trouble in Japan. For some reason the last train out of Sakurajima only did the extension part of its route rather than its complete one, which would have allowed me to transfer back at Osaka Station. Damn it all. I ended stuck at Universal Studios Japan, about 90 minutes from my place in Tsukamoto. I finally managed to find a security guard of a hotel. Zero English was used. But he helped me more than I could thank him for. Ugh, I had no choice but to take a taxi back. The cost of which fell just under $30. Much sad, I was.
Day 2
Back at the grind, I came back around the same time to the venue to check out Vintage Trouble, an American blues rock band from California. Bless The Lord that singers like Ty Taylor exists, it felt like you were taken back to the roots of rock’ n’ roll with his voice. The energy he had throughout his performance basically drove the audience crazy as they couldn’t stop grooving. He even left the stage to climb the video tower to perform the top there.
Epically thrilling.
However, I wanted to come early so I could a great stop to see the awesome Chicago duo, Krewella, perform. As we shifted to the front center, we met some Japanese kids fresh off their university graduation. Needless to say, they all came for Arctic Monkeys, too, but were also stoked to check out Krewella. Damn, the girls really brought it because everyone was drenching in their own sweat from how much they rocked out to them.
I’m really glad to have left that image in your head, dear reader. Miar left to go see Baby Metal, while I stuck around with our new Japanese friends to see The 1975. When they came out, I had no idea Japan had so many fans because the crowd went wild for them. This one girl right at the front actually designed a shirt for Matthew Healy and he actually requested that she throw it to him and he actually wore it for her for a the middle portion of the show. She was bawling until he said, “You don’t need to cry, you did so well.”
Dopeness.
Now, I never really knew about Jamaica before the festival but I heard they were good performers. So we all headed to the indoor stage for them and damn, they were bumping. They were the alternative, poppy band you would not expect France to produce. Regardless, they had goofy comments in between their songs and had fun with the audience.
It was high time that we grabbed something to eat, which worked well since all we really wanted at this point was to see Arctic Monkeys to perform. After choking down we just waited by the main stage where Robert Plant and the Sensational Shapeshifters performed their voodoo magic. Now, I have really enjoyer Led Zeppelin since I first started listening to music but it felt both awe-inspiring and strange to see Robert Plant up there with his spacey voice singing psychedelic tunes with this motley crew of talented musicians that were not Led Zeppelin. Despite his age, the man can still sing his heart out and garner the respect of the crowd with each tune. A legend worth seeing.
However, few bands have been able to get better and better with age in mind like Arctic Monkeys. A core reason why I wanted to see them. The other main reason was that every track on “AM” is musical genius and if the performance could be as good as their record, I would leave Japan a happy man.
They delivered.
They opened with “Do I Wanna Know?”. They felt they warmed us up only after three songs and decided it was for “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”. I had never been so happy to have body thrashed around so much in a crowd. They didn’t feel like that was enough so they pulled out “Crying Lightning”. Lord almighty. I didn’t want it to stop. But then their set time was over. No. It wasn’t because they came right back on with “One for the Road” since no one wanted to leave. And they kept on giving for 3 more songs. God bless Arctic Monkeys.
