30 July 2011

Bands I saw at Fuji Rock yesterday


  • The Vaccines - BritPop, a couple interesting songs but didn`t liveup to the article I read about them
  • The Kaiser Chiefs - A British rock band I hadn`t heard of, delivered agreat set andreallyknew how to work the audience. Best large concert of the day!
  • Manu Chao la Ventura - didn`t realize I knew them from the Once Upon a Time in Mexico soundtrack. These guys rock out, fantastic high-energy show and I would love to see them again!
  • Jimmy Eat World - You know, when they played their hits they were really great and everybody liked it. But playing any other songs they were... not so great.
  • Arctic Monkeys -- Came highly recommended and definitely know how to play their brand of hardish rock. But all the songs sounded the same and the rhythm section sometimes seemed like they were playing a different song than the leads. Farthest below expectations of any show of the day.
  • uhnellys -- My favorite show of the day. A Japanese guy playing guitar and Coronet, and a Japanese woman on drums and backing vocals (and we were suspecting, a third critical person coordinating all the loops). He would lay down some loops on guitar and vocals, she would drum to them and sing along, and then he would play/sing over them improvising along the general theme of the song. As we said, we saw more creativity in his first song than Arctic Monkeys` whole set. Will definitely be looking out for them again!
  • Widespread Panic -- Hadn`t heard of them below, but they seem like good ol` (southern?)rock and roll. Enjoyable, especially since they were in the mellow venue at Fuji Rock.
  • Big Audio Dynamite -- great show, these guys are looking kind of old but you wouldn`t know to listen to them!
  • Four Tet -- Dylan had heard some good recorded stuff from them but their set last night wasn`t amazing to listen to.


...and that was just the first day!