Tag - fuji-rock

 
 

FUJI ROCK

Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 3, 2016
The British trip that helped inspire Fuji Rock Festival founder Masahiro Hidaka
If Fuji Rock Festival could be embodied in one person, Masahiro Hidaka is the perfect choice. When the man who founded the country's premier outdoor music gathering meets up with The Japan Times, he is wearing a Pogues T-shirt and taking drags off a cigarette in the rain — after all, what's Fuji Rock without rain?
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jun 23, 2016
In search of Japan's essential summer festivals
With July just around the corner, Japan is gearing up for another sultry summer. Since the sizzling-hot days only last until early September, people make the most of the season by getting outside — that includes going to film festivals, art and fashion events or outdoor musical gatherings.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 21, 2016
SEALDs leader's invite to Fuji Rock sparks online debate
A controversy has broken out on social media after the name of a high-profile youth activist appeared last week on the list of artists attending this year's Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 12, 2016
Red Hot Chili Peppers return for 20th anniversary of Fuji Rock
Los Angeles alternative rock outfit Red Hot Chili Peppers and Icelandic post-rock trio Sigur Ros were among acts named Friday to perform at the 20th anniversary of Fuji Rock Festival in July.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 29, 2015
Music festivals are better when the customer isn't always right
In an industry that devotes itself with ever more granular precision to the art of serving you what its research says you want, music and events that demand you meet them halfway are ever more precious.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2015
Never mind the lineup: Fuji Rock is more than music
It has only been three years since Fuji Rock Festival posted its highest-ever attendance figures, with a little help from Radiohead and The Stone Roses, but you wouldn't have known it from the steady drumbeat of glumness that heralded this year's edition. Following a lackluster showing in 2014, when Kanye West canceled, Jack Johnson fizzled and only 102,000 people bothered to show up (down from 140,000 in 2012), the festival badly needed a hit. Yet the signs weren't promising.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jul 24, 2015
Fuji Rock bound? Make sure you survive in style
A few items that will help you stay dry and happy during Fuji Rock Festival's unpredictable weather.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 23, 2015
Noel Gallagher brings his High Flying Birds back to Fuji Rock and where the 'mania' began
It doesn't take much to set Noel Gallagher off. We are sat in a backstage portacabin at London's peculiarly ragbag Clapham Calling festival, and I've just mentioned to the former Oasis songwriter that "Chasing Yesterday," the second solo album under his High Flying Birds banner, is the U.K.'s fastest selling of the year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 23, 2015
Hocori to give Fuji Rock a groove to be proud of
Tagging their work as electronic "buddy" music, Takuji Sekine and Yosuke Momono say their group, Hocori, is a way for two instrumentalists to indulge in artificial beats.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jun 18, 2015
A festival for every weekend of your summer
Festivals (matsuri) of all kinds are a staple of Japanese culture and summer is the premier season to experience them. In recent years, the country has seen a bit of a boom in cultural festivals, to the point that it's possible to book every weekend of your summer around them. We're here to help by highlighting the best "fests" happening over the next three months.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2014
Two weddings and a 'Funeral' at Fuji
It's hard to know what the organizers at Fuji Rock Festival were thinking when they decided to have Jack Johnson headline the main stage on the event's last day. Not the infectious cheer and endearingly kitsch theatricality of The Flaming Lips, who performed directly before, or even the guaranteed singalong power of anthem-merchants Franz Ferdinand and Arcade Fire, who had closed out the prior two nights, but Jack Johnson — a man who presumably gets most of his airplay from people on hold to understaffed call centers.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2014
Jungle: 'When you write a song certain people want to hear ... that's when you start making crap music'
As Jungle, Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland — who go by 'J' and 'T' — produce classic soul and funk with an unmistakably modern feel to it. The duo has also been racking up fans and YouTube hits alike with a series of strikingly idiosyncratic, dance-oriented music videos. Jungle recently launched its self-titled debut album with a release party in their hometown of London.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 28, 2014
Looking back at Fuji Rock Festival 2014
A curated collection of the highlights of the Fuji Rock Festival 2014, as seen on social media
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2014
Arcade Fire returns to Japan for Fuji Rock as a bigger and happier band
Much has changed in Arcade Fire's world since the band was last in Japan. Back in February 2008, the Canadian six-piece, still propelled forward by the momentum created by its debut "Funeral," a record that attained perpetual cult status through nothing more than its sheer brilliance, was winding up promotion of its followup, "Neon Bible."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2014
Manic Sheep, Wedance represent overseas indie at Fuji Rock Festival
Since 2001, Fuji Rock's Rookie a Go-Go stage has spotlighted indie talents not quite ready for the festival's larger areas. Acts apply to play — this year 1,300 bands vied for 15 slots — and with the exception of Taiwan's Go Chic in 2010, all the past performers have been locals. But this summer sees Rookie a Go-Go again adding a dash of international flavor, with Taiwan's Manic Sheep and South Korea's Wedance earning invitations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 22, 2014
St. Vincent sits at a crossroads of 'the acceptable and the strange'
Chatting to Annie Clark, what is noticeable is how much she differs from her artistic alter ego. The music she creates as St. Vincent — ambitious art-rock that blends avant-garde sound with melodic richness — has been refined to the point that now, four albums in, she is an artist working entirely in her own sphere. Her songs drip with anxiety, vulnerability and sexual intrigue.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 15, 2014
YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi recruits Towa Tei, Cornelius, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai for an impressive supergroup
One of the unspoken rules in the progress-fixated world of electronic music is that you don't get bonus points for dwelling on past glories. So when Yukihiro Takahashi — drummer, vocalist and dapper elder statesman of electro-pop — convened a star cast of musicians at Tokyo's Ex Theater Roppongi in January to perform faithful renditions of songs that he'd first recorded 30 years ago, it was, he admits, "partly tongue-in-cheek."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jul 12, 2014
Koichi Hanafusa: 'I'd like everyone to see that life is worth living'
Fuji Rock fansite organizer on music, festivals and bugs.
Japan Times
CULTURE
May 31, 2014
Essential summer festivals 2014
A summer without festivals simply wouldn’t be a proper summer in Japan, so now that the humidity has returned, it’s time to slop on an extra layer of sunscreen and line up some outdoor activities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2014
Kanye West cancels Fuji Rock headline spot
Kanye West has canceled his headline appearance at this year's Fuji Rock Festival "due to artist circumstances," according to festival organizers.

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