Found in Tokyo

Ever since the beginning of the spring I had been thinking about attending Summer Sonic, Tokyo’s largest urban music festival of the year. After all, Arctic Monkeys were headlining the Sunday show, and there were some other notable acts (mainly Modest Mouse on Saturday). But I procrastinated too long and tickets quickly sold out. However, after seeing the schedule (and learning of some new bands like Maximo Park) I decided I had to go. Yahoo! Auctions came to the rescue and I was promptly the owner of a two-day pass for just over face.

I’ve got a selection of (non-concert) event photos. Or, hit the jump for a more complete review of attending a festival, Japan style.

Summer Sonic was, somewhat surprisingly, held in the combination of (a) Makuhari Messe, the convention center (and home of Tokyo Game Show in a few weeks) and (b) Chiba Marine Stadium. This means that it had all the allure of an RV show — as Modest Mouse said when they started their show, “Welcome to the Modest Mouse seminar at the Convention Center.” However, atmosphere aside, this was a great festival, in part due to:

• Great crowds — For all the shows (except Cindy Lauper!) I was pretty much able to be as far forward as I wanted to be by showing up about five minutes before the show. However, the fans turned out to be great at almost every show, with a bunch of folks knowing the music and
• Great staff — It seemed like, everywhere you looked, there was a (pink-shirted!) member of staff, and unlike many shows in the US most seemed happy to be there.
• Laid-back security — Other than really wanting folks to not take pictures, security was really not interesting in being too overbearing during the shows.
• No stupid restrictions — As noted above, I carried in over a gallon of water each day along with food. No worries whatsoever.
• Air-conditioning — Tokyo was in a huge heat wave with temperatures over 33C (that’s about 95F). After thirty minutes watching OK GO from the pit of the stadium (which was dark vinyl covering on top of the field) I was completely soaked. Fortunately most of the shows I wanted to see were in the Messe.
• Reasonable concessions – Perhaps because everyone could (a) bring in whatever they wanted, and (b) leave and come back, the local concessions were quite tasty and affordable. Yea, it was still festival food, but at least it wasn’t a rip-off. The fresh pineapple on a stick for 150 yen was a nice touch too. Although I thought it was too hot for booze, there were full bars all over the place as well.
• Sleep in your own bed — Although you could sleep out at the venue (and they had an all-night dance party), most venues shut down at 9PM and headliners were on at 7:30PM. Given the heat and humidity, sleeping at home in the air-con was far preferable to the typical festival experience. Not to mention a good shower.

Of course, there were elements of just plain silliness as well (why design 15 or so styles of event shirts but then only make enough so they are sold out within the first 45 minutes of a two-day festival?)

Overall, though, I’d take this festival over the few I’ve been to in the US, even considering the tickets were 15,000 JPY for 1-day and 27,500 JPY for the weekend.