Fuji Rock Festival 2018, Day Two

Back in February, when the first lineup announcement was posted on the festival’s site, the name of Kendrick Lamar stood out and gave me high hopes for this year’s edition. I was curious and did some research on previous lineups. I found out that N.E.R.D. and Kendrick Lamar were the first black artists to headline Fuji Rock in its 22 years of history. Before some of you  might think that’s not so unusual for a rock festival, let me remind you who headlined the biggest one. Jimi Hendrix did, in Woodstock, 1968.

If there was one criticism I had for the previous edition, the only one I attended before this year’s, was the lack of hip hop. Death Grips was the only act remotely representative of the genre in the festival that year. This year, other than the two headliners, there were Anderson Paak and Kali Uchis; and each one of their performances -can’t speak for Uchis’, unfortunately I missed it because I was saving my spot for Bob Dylan- were packed. I can’t understand the organizers’ logic, especially when they have room to invite bands like Jet, Travis or Train.

This second day started with my favorite Japanese act out of the six I saw this year: Eastern Youth. I saw them tagged as Emo and was worried. I was relieved to realize that my worries were unfounded. They actually are closer to shoegaze and noise rock. The guitar player/vocalist and the bass player had an amazing chemistry. They will lock into a groove and play with the dynamics of it from soft to loud throughout their set. They had solid tunes to boost as well.

After checking the site with my buddy during an hour break we stopped by the Red Marquee to see Nariaki Obukuro. He’s made a career mostly as a producer of artists like Hikaru Utada and Wednesday Campanella, among many others. You could tell, because his strong suit was his songs’ arrangements. Unfortunately just watching a guy alone on stage singing with his hands in his pockets  to a background track felt like watching a karaoke performance, and the tunes didn’t help. I’m not too fond of the TV-Drama-closing-credits sounding J-Pop either. The nods to Battles and James Blake felt less like a tribute and more like he wanted to copy that sound.

I left early to check Johnny Marr at the Green Stage who, as expected, delivered some high caliber, professionally played rock and roll. That sound of a rhythm and lead guitar interlocked that feels like a full orchestra and that only experienced musicians can pull off, was a constant during his set. He played lots of solo material as well as a few Smiths songs. I’m not a The Smiths expert, but those three songs he played sounded timeless. He closed with There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, which turned into one of the biggest sing-alongs of the whole festival. The man who wrote those tunes that we witnessed on stage deserves to be called a legend.

Maximum the Hormone, from Japan, came next to the same stage. Even though my hopes were not particularly high, they didn’t match my expectations. In my opinion that mix of quirkiness and extreme metal works better for this band than it does for Babymetal, but they are just not metal enough. I didn’t know they were also a comedy act. About 25% of their set was spent on stage banter and jokes about the typhoon that the area where the festival was held was able to dodge. They also rely too much on that upbeat ska beat that’s a J-pop staple. I wouldn’t say they’re an awful band, it was a pleasant set. But compared to videos I’ve seen online I couldn’t help but being disappointed.

On the way back to the hotel, I was trying to explain to my friend the meaning of the word “cheesy” in English, a word that I thought fit perfectly to describe what Skrillex’s set was. I was not planning to see him, but since he was playing right before Kendrick I had to endure his set saving a spot for the headliner’s, and it was tough. Before he went on stage people from his crew handed out surgical masks, like the ones lots of people use in Japan but this time black, with “Skrillex” written up front. The font is an exact replica of Mayhem’s logo. I also saw t-shirts reproducing Darkthrone’s logo, but assumed they were from Maximum the Hormone. It turned out that Skrillex is now appropriating black metal logos for his merch, I hope he’s playing royalties. Any hopes I had for a little of black metal were dissipated from the beginning, and instead just got a whole lot of “how you’re doing Fuji Rock!!!” rants. The cheese levels went through the roof with the encore when the stagehands rolled a matching transparent grand piano and a drum set to the stage. At that point most people knew what was coming next. Yoshiki from X Japan played a couple of songs with Skrillex on guitar. Will X Japan headline next year?

As dusk was setting in, the wind blew stronger and the rain fell harder. Until the lights went out and the Kung Fu Kenny movie (speaking of cheese) started. The show really got started when he put up on the screen the Fox News segment that ’s sampled in his song DNA. As soon as that woman said “Ugh, I don’t like it” and Kendrick Lamar stormed the stage with “I got, I got, I got, I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA” we all knew we were in for a treat. The kind of poetry described above was the rule for the entire set, as Kung Fu Kenny turned into Pulitzer Kenny, the big screen behind him reminded us. From the same song: “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA. I got dark, I got evil that rot inside my DNA”. Kendrick Lamar is not afraid to describe the complexities and contradictions of human beings, on the contrary, that’s what his whole art is about. That’s what makes him an artist. He’s able to embody as a performer and in his lyrics, existence’s trials and tribulations. He was center stage for the duration of the show, with the musicians barely visible on the sides. That means he carried the whole show on his own and didn’t let the energy drop for a second, even with that inclement weather. Songs from his latest album Damn dominated the setlist, but he also included a few from To Pimp a Butterfly and Good Kid MAAD City, like King Kunta and Swimming Pools. The encore was All The Stars, from the Black Panther soundtrack. After an hour and 15 minutes he made a promise to the audience to come back and left the stage, leaving people wanting more.

In this 5 years living in Japan I’ve learned a lot from its culture and have met wonderful people, the pros overwhelmingly outweigh the cons. But there’s this one thing that I experience every single day, like every other person of color does here, that on the surface might seem insignificant but it’s really hurtful. It happens when some people would not sit next to you on the train. I couldn’t help thinking that in that audience of tens of thousands that were chanting “Kendrick, Kendrick” there were a few that would avoid sitting on an empty seat next to him if they were riding the Chuo Line together. I also thought about the 22 years in which those suits denied the opportunity to a black performer to headline their festival. And how Kendrick destroyed their stage and left their jaws on the floor, showing, through pure artistry, what black excellence -and what rock- is all about.

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