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Published: August 30th 2008
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Rising Sun Rock Festival is a celebration of music and musicians from Japan. Held annually in Ishikari Beach (just outside of Sapporo city) the Festival draws many fans and lovers of music. Rising Sun aka: Ezo (Ainu name for Hokkaido) Rock celebrated it's 10 yr August 15th-17th.
Ishikara Beach is a great location for *Rising Sun, because it is an amazing place to view the sunrise. Many people opt to sleep the first nite, but almost everyone stays up the second nite to welcome the sun as it floats into the sky creating a plethora of brilliant vivid colors.
This year was my first time to attend the festival. I bought my tickets months ago and kept an eye on the list of attending artists.
The festival grounds opened at 10 or 11, but I was busy in the morning, and didn't make it to the shuttle bus until around 2. I met Olivia and we shuttled together. I had met Sara in the a.m to give her my tent to set up, so I was fortuantly not lugging it around.
On the shuttlebus it started raining a bit. I didn't have an umbrella, but did have a
raincoat. Even so I was praying for the rain to pour until we arrived at the grounds! When we got to the gate the line extended for miles and miles! We jumped in as we really wanted to catch the 1st act at 3. In line behind me ironically enough was Rob; a non-Sapporo (but lives in Sapporo) ALT. We have the same Japanese teacher and while I remembered him, he didn't remember me! Anyway, we chatted.
We got through the gate JUST as the opening band KURURI came on. Olivia and I practically ran to the main stage to see. I am familiar with Kururi, though not enough to sing along. It wasn't raining...more like misting and most people stood with their faces uncovered. It was quite humid and the mist felt really nice. The shows were all scheduled to last around 40-50minutes. so after the show we made our way around to explore and we wanted to find my tent to ditch our heavy bags! While wandering around we came across a delivery service! I was shocked! I mean it's absolutely brilliant having a delivery service, but still seems kinda weird. People were there picking up their
camping gear that they'd shipped.
While looking for our tent site we came across the pin area. Pins are apparantly called *badges in British English. So people were lining up (queuing) to buy pins from machines then going to a separate tent to swap pins to get the ones they wanted or to complete their collection. Some people were spending a fortune! Olivia and I had to join the madness. I said I would only spend 300 yen , but I spent 400! I got 2 bands I liked though.
We found the tent area, but couldn't actually find my tent....he,he...I just bought if off someone and had never put it up, so I wasn't sure about the size! We had to ask someone to help us locate our spot number...
After depositing our stuff and trekking back to the grounds we met up with TakeuchiSan aka Beerman and some of his buddies. Most of whom I had heard about before, but had yet to meet. We hung out for a while and went with them to see The Pillows. We stayed for about 1/2 the show and headed to the Moon Circus to see Shingo2. Shingo2
is cool. I like his music a lot, but like many hip hop artists he tends to come off as a bit of a prick on stage. I expect hip hop artists to be like that so I wasn't fazed, but some of my other friends thought he was overboard. He has good lyrics and they aren't all about pride and shooting up the neighborhood. And he has a violin as an accompanyment which is pretty sweet.
After Shingo2 we met up with Mutsuki, Olivia, Sara, Tara, and Ben for a few minutes then busted out to try to catch some TokyoJihen (BLAH!!) and then Denki Groove which was AMAZING!!!! I think this was my favorite show all weekend. It was totally fun, good beats, a few random lyrics and some awesome visuals. After D.G. we booked it back to the Moon Circus Stage to see tha blue herb and DJ KRUSH. DJ Krush was sweet. And I should mention the Red Stage was between the Sun Stage and the Moon stage and as we passed I was really tempted to stop, but Friday had all the bands I was pretty sure I wanted to see so no time
olivia and i
in front of the "get happy 2/366 days a year!" sign for lounging! Must see Music!
After DJ Krush Olivia and I headed to Ken Yokoyama ( a very cool rock/punk band) and kicked it there for a while. The cameras kept showing their rather large gaijin drummer. He was heavily tatooted and really really big!
Olivia (NZ) had to leave after the show and about that time I met up Sara, Olivia (OZ), Alex, and Yuki. We went to see the Bloodthirsty Butchers. I ran into one of my former students there. We talked a bit until the show started. I was pretty beat and headed out after about 20 minutes.
Our tent was situtated in field and was 1/2 way on a row...So I spent the nite trying not to roll off the hunt onto the other people in the tent! Everyone woke up early, so I eventually crawled out of the tent and got up to greet the day too. The lines were long to brush our teeth so our grouped brushed our teeth by our tents and spit between them. We headed inside for some much needed coffee. It was a beautiful sunny day and I wore a dress and kept my shoulders uncovered
trying to get SUN Sun SUN! Some of us stopped by the NPO/NGO area and made some stuffs. There was a big drum circle pounding out rythyms. I stopped by the Ainu area and tried sewing an Ainu design on a piece of fabric. My group left me and I stayed until 1 or so when Hitomi mailed me. I went to meet her at her bro's tent. I hadn't met her in awhile and was surprised to see she'd cut her hair! Everytime I saw her before I regretted cutting mine, because her hair was so pretty.
We hung out for a while at her brothers tent then went to find Takeuchi. We wandered around the grounds for a while. We stopped to see Tokyo #1 Soul Set play. We ended up at Moon Circus and Hitomi wanted to meet another friend so I went to see Oki Ainu Dub Foundation. They were the furthest stage away! I met up with Tara Ben and Olivia there. Also saw a few Japanese girls I knew and a Jet I'd met a few times. I made my rounds and said hello. I also saw Yoshi who was filming with the
surf director whose name I always forget (sunny day guy).
Spent the rest of the night wandering and kept going back to the Moon circus stage because good dj's were playing. Sasaki-san mailed me around 1 and I went to meet her at the NPO/NGO area. She was super exhausted from driving back from Obihirio, so we didn't talk much. Instead, I painted a rock. Around 2 I went back to the Moon circus area where I stayed a few hours till 4 when the sun started coming up. I wanted to see the sunrise so I trekked back to the main area. It was a beautiful day for a sunrise and the colors were exceptionally vivid.
The last band came on at 5:30, but at that point we'd already packed the tent up and were getting in the bus lines.
As soon as I got home I crashed out until 4 or 5 pm!
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