If you can avoid the drunk undergraduates and terrible yakisoba, the university festival season is an excellent time to see good bands for cheap. Musashino University consistently draws crowds to its Ekoda campus with cool, offbeat groups. It's worth going just for the venue: a Meiji Era concert hall complete with chandeliers and a balcony that usually becomes the focus of some seriously decadent revelry.
This year brings AOA, Boredoms' guitarist Seichii Yamamoto's trance-improv group, to the Musashino stage. AOA is a strange mix of Grateful Dead-style jams and techno-style beats, made even stranger by the second guitarist, a huge, balding fellow whose penchant for boas and Funkadelic-style clothing clashes jarringly with the trippie-hippie vibe of the group's music. DJ Kaoru Inoue (aka Chari Chari) will add his jazzy ambient touch to the proceedings, while Wrench pumps up the rock volume.
Though other schools aren't quite as adventurous, there are a few good gigs to catch. Sophia University in Yotsuya hosts Babamania, a funky rock outfit that draws comparison to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, while Tokyo's answer to Blur, Pre-School, headlines at Meiji Gakuen University. Its answer to Devo, Polysics, plays at Tokyo Yakku University.