As the opening set started at Festival de Frue last year, it was clear the organizers wouldn't be making a profit. Quirky J-pop act Wednesday Campanella, who had played to a capacity crowd at Fuji Rock Festival a few months earlier, kicked off its performance in front of an audience of just a few dozen people, spread around a venue that looked more like a glorified school gymnasium.
By the end of the show, there were still only about 100 people watching, but the buoyant atmosphere suggested that the weekend wouldn't be a total washout. Over the next two days, Frue served up a diverse selection of sounds — spiritual jazz, Turkish psych, indie rock, slow-motion techno — crowned by a trio of performances by the Master Musicians of Joujouka, a Sufi trance band from Morocco who I'd never imagined anyone would be brave enough to bring to Japan.
The setting — an off-season holiday resort in Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture — added to the charm of the offbeat lineup. While the main venue may not have been much to look at, its crisp acoustics were evidence of its previous incarnation: It was once the home of the Yamaha Popular Song Contest, a biannual music competition held in the 1970s and '80s that helped launch the careers of artists including Miyuki Nakajima and Motoharu Sano.