---EPIC POST ALERT---
Travelogue:
Day 1, 14 Aug.- My friend from Tokyo was in town. For privacy sake we will call her "Margot". Margot and I happened to have the same flight to Tokyo, which was nice. We got there and she departed. I left out of the same gate, bound for Sapporo. After getting to Sapporo I wondered around a for a little while and finally came to my hotel. I went out and had some ramen and explored the scene on foot. Sapporo is like Tokyo, but with less people. It seemed pretty nice. I wouldn't mind living there, if not for the frigid winter months.
15 Aug-
Got up around 6am to take the subway to Asabu station. Waited in a giant line for the shuttle buses out to the Festival. The buses left at around 10am and arrived around 1045. Stood in line with thousands of other people waiting for the gates to open. Finally start walking in and it starts raining. It never poured, but it just rained steadily the entire day. I didn't have any rain gear, and I was dragging a rather large/heavy suitcase. I also had on some brand new converse that are a little small around the toes, width wise. All of this added up to a miserable couple of hours. I drug my ass all the way to my tent site (at least a mile away from the entrance) through the mud/rocks. I get there and the workers are like "you have to exchange your ticket for a tent site ticket at the front". Great. So I go allll the way back, then allll the way back again. Finally I set my tent up, still raining mind you, and get inside. I was completely soaked to the bone, and the converse had made giant blisters on my pinky toes. The one on my left foot had burst on the second trek to the tent site, so my sock was all bloody. All the clothes and stuff in my suitcase were wet also. I changed into some dryer clothing, and the rain subsided a little bit. Time for some music!
Quruli: 1500-1550- opening act on the main stage. Great band! Margot had exposed me to them previously, but it was only a taste. Great live performance. The guitarist is off the chain.
After that I got some food and wondered around a bit. This place was HUGE. 1 main stage and SIX side stages! SIX! I heard over the loud speaker that there were 40,000 people there.
I watched the Pillows for a little bit, they were good.
Tokyo Jihen: 1900-1950- ZOMG. SO awesome seeing them in concert. They played a good set. Mostly stuff from Variety. They played OSCA and Killer Tune, so I freaked out. The guitar portion of the set was a HUGE let down though. He is so good on CD's and in other live DVD's..not sure what happened. The rest was good though. Shiina's voice was top notch.
After that I just wondered around in a stupor for a while. I wondered into the Cystal Palace stage, which was like a club basically. They had a band called Buffalo Daughter playing. I was VERY impressed. It's like..space out rock? They would just jam for like 15 minutes straight. 3 gals on vox/guitar, bass, drums, and a dude on turn tables. Fuckin awesome.
I passed by as Ken Yokoyama was playing. Not bad. Bed time.
16 Aug-
Big day! Shiina Ringo day!! I think I woke up around like 8am. Nothing was going on so I stood in line to buy merch and stuff. I watched GaGaGaSP, which was like a punk band. They were pretty good. I then went to my tent I think. I passed by Red Star Field as Double Famous were playing. It was like a "big band" sort of thing. They were covering Sympathy For The Devil at the time so I hung around.
Beat Crusaders: 1540-1630- These guys were good! The keyboardist didn't have much to do, so he danced around a lot. He was tall and lanky, so it was funny. The guitarist was AMAZING. He had an Angus Young style school boy outfit that was dark blue. He was seriously good.
Pupa: 1800-1850- I like Tomoyo Harada, so I made a special trip to see Pupa. They were very very good. It was a lot like the Gorillaz, minus the hip hop. Very experimental, but the band members had been around a while so it was like new-old. I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of hippie types in the crowed. :)
Shonen Knife: 1900-1950- I have known about these gals for a while now. They are like the Ramones. Kurt Kobain, and a lot of other people, were outspoken fans of them. They have been playing since like '92! You can't tell though, because the show was full of energy. They fuckin rocked, and everyone in there was jumping around like nuts. For the last song the Beat Crusaders awesome ass guitarist came out and rocked the house. It was epic, because the Beat Crusaders played on the main stage, but Shonen Knife was on one of the smaller venues. Super awesome show, so glad I got to see them.
SHIINA RINGO: 2020-2110- HOLY FUCK. The moment I have been waiting for for months. I got fairly close, but the field was PACKED. You could tell that a lot of people had come just for this. They set up the stage with a piano and orchestra box, then some fireworks started going off. After the fireworks, Saito Nekko and 2 other guys came out and took positions. Shiina came out and just owned the entire place. Her voice was immaculate, her piano was amazing...it was the best thing evar. Saito Nekko is so damn good on the violin, it was scary. All in all, a beautiful set and something I hope I will never forget. For the last song, Saito took up the piano and Shiina just sang. It was beautiful, and like every single girl in the crowed was crying afterward.
I was going to stick around for Zazen Boys, as I really like Number Girl, but this girl took me over to Ego-wrappin'. Wow. I am so glad I saw them. They were fucking AMAZING. Certainly the best set of the festival, sans Shiina Ringo. It was a 6 piece jazz band, and the lead singer was this chick. Jumping around like a maniac, really reminded me of Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She has a very lovely voice as well.
After that I meandered around for a little while until The Back Horn...
The Back Horn: 0130-0230- I had just seen these guys in Okinawa a couple weeks before, and they rocked just as hard on a big stage. It was 0130 in the morning, so the crowed wasn't giant..but it was fucking rabid. I got up to the front into the mosh pit area and had a fucking blast. These guys are a must see live.
I then got something to eat and went to sleep around 0400.
17 Aug-
Woke up at 0500 to pack up the tent and shit, then wait in line for the shuttle buses. Got to Sapporo and my hotel around 1000. I realized I had
left my credit card at the festival, and I got really pissed off. I got the front desk people to get the festival peeps on the horn. They said my card was indeed there, at the lost and found. I only had 700 yen on me, and no way to get out to the festival grounds. The desk people talked to a cabby and he said he would take me out there. 13,000 yen and 1.5 hours later I was back at the hotel. The cabby knocked 3,000 yen off for me, but it was still a hundred dollar taxi ride..fucking lame. So it was about noon when I finally was able to chill out. I ate something and asked to check in. Check in time was 1300. Wow. So I fell asleep for 30 minutes on the couches in the lobby. I stumbled up to the desk around 1245 and asked to check in. I finally got to my room and went to sleep around 1300. I woke up at 0200, watched TV for an hour, then went back to sleep until 0630. Yup..that's the most sleep I have EVER gotten in my entire life. It was insane. Over 16 hours. That's almost an entire day, gone! oh well.
18 Aug to 21 Aug-
Made my way to the airport. Flew to Tokyo, met up with Margot. We had a lot of fun just going around. We didn't hit any tourist sites, as I did that the last time I was in Tokyo. I got drunk one night and we walked around west Ikebukuro. I talked to a cultist for a little while. We also went chihuahua shopping. We went to the top of the Tokyo Dome hotel. There is a really nice bar/lounge thing up there and you only need to buy one drink and you can sit there and look out over Tokyo. It's a freakin amazing view. I recommend that to everyone. Margot had a Japanese/Italian friend and he told me all about the Gipsy problem in Italy. I had no idea.
That about sums it up. Now time for some pictures. All the pictures from the festival are on my phone, so I will post those when I get them off of the phone.
Tokyo Jihen shirt:


RSR Yellow shirt with animals on it.


Tokyo Jihen hangy thing and hologram button


The Back Horn lanyard and button

RSR purple wrist band. Black was sold out :(

The wrist band for tent site people. It's got a groovy design.

RSR Bad Moon Rising shirt. This design is off the chain


RSR pouch. They had little vending machines and you got a random button of the bands playing for 100 yen. I lucked out and got Shiina Ringo, Shonen Knife, and Buffalo Daughter!! Yatta! I also traded a Bloodthirsty Butchers button for a Quruli. There was a tent full of people trading them. It was like pokemon. All the older buttons from past RSR were like worth a lot.

---Some pictures of my new house--- (sorry it's such a mess, just got back!)













---ALSO---
Got the some new chocolate face shoes at the BX before my trip. I got the Cons at Jusco here on Okinawa. I got the fucking SICK ASS Adidas at a shoe store in Ikebukuro. Chinese edition baby! They are like the olympic chinese versions or something..I don't know. Fucking hot though. I got the little Princess Mononoke things at the Moe store. It's like a Ghibli outlet. The stuff was actually very well prices, as opposed to most Ghibli merch I find. They glod in the dark, and go in a fish tank. I will post pics of them in my tank when I stop being lazy.




