Summersonic 2008 [Day One]

Kozue had tried to see them perform at another festival recently, and couldn't get in they were so popular. Which is why we got there super early to guarantee a place. I knew they would be miming, but the show (disappointingly) featured no instrumentation/ musicians / or effort of any kind...just a karaoke concert. We did try and get into the show...Perfume's thumping beats sounded great played at full blast...and it was fun to dance along to. But, after one song the band took a (lazy) break, and proceeded to chat with the audience for about 8 minutes. Which, in a 30 minutes set was just CRAZY. After a while it just felt like they were killing time so they didn't have to perform. Eventually we got a couple more songs...but every chance they got to kill some more time with chatting they did it. The faithful crowd got a meazly four songs in half an hour, I dread to think how much time wasting is in one of their normal concerts. Only in Japan could someone get away with such a vacuous, non-performance. How you've disappointed me Perfume.

Onwards and upwards. I did a fair amount of wandering around on the Saturday. I managed to avoid the scorching heat by staying out of the Chiba Marines stage, and thus had a much better time all around this year. I was drawn in by Yelle's performance at the Dance stage again next. She was a whole load of fun. Her songs sounded like playground chants with a funky electronica backing (check out Je Veux Te Voir and A Cause Des Garcons to see what I mean) I could count the amount of French musicians I liked on a fingerless hand before, so it was good to discover her...and to see a proper performance. I caught bits of Kids In Glass Houses and New Found Glory's sets at the Mountain stage next. It's a biiiiiig indoor stage, and has the worst sound of all the stages. KIGH were kinda same-old same-old E-M-O fare, while NFG just sounded like a big rumbly mush.

I lasted one song of We Smoke Fags before walking out...Band Of Horses, I kinda like but they were a bit too sombre to watch for too long. The f***up of the day award went to The Kills. Who flew to Japan to perform at Summersonic, set up their gear, and just didn't perform. Singer Alison Mosshart came onstage to a massive chorus of boos and explained their drum machine had all of it's data deleted, and they couldn't perform. Was it the truth? Who knows, but they're idiots for disappointing all their fans.

I watched a bit of Panic At The Disco's show on the big screen from another arena. Unfortunately they they were in full on Beatles mode (well, more like the Rutles) from the start. They clashed with Death Cab For Cutie's set anyway so I wasn't going to miss that.


DCFC were the best band of the day for me. I'd never seen them live before, but I've become a pretty big fan of the band. Aisa told me she was quite underwhelmed with their gig recently... I gotta say they were really outstanding that day. It may be be the 'bands only try hard in gig cities' syndrome, but either way all four guys put in a really passionate performance. 

Starting with 'Bixby Canyon Bridge' Ben Gibbard shattered the stodgy, professor image I had of him, proving to be quite the cool and intense frontman. Chris Walla turned out to be quite the geek I didn't imagine him to be though! The set was a bit light on 'Plans' material ...but featured most of the best tunes from 'Transatlanticism' & 'Narrow Stairs'.

The rest of the day was spent at the main stage, now thankfully cooler in the evening. I got to see most of The Verve's set. I'm not a massive fan of the Verve, but I wanted to see them just for posterity. The majority of the set was musically interesting, but really quite depressing. Richard Ashcroft in particular seemed lost in his own hopelessness. They pulled things around in the end with a strong finale of 'Lucky Man', 'Bittersweet Symphony' & 'Love Is Noise' to their credit.

Not tempted by the chance to see the Sex Pistols, I chose to finish off the day watching The Prodigy. They're in something of no-man's land career wise now...one album in the last ten years...and they haven't had a successful single in almost as long. Which made tonight's performance something of a nostalgia trip. Forgetting how old some of these tunes were I had a great time dancing away to their greatest hits set. 'Voodoo People', 'Firestarter', 'Breathe'... there were plenty of great tunes. Keith Flint & Maxim Reality are both really weird frontmen... and great to see in an age of so many bland hipsters. Maxim spouted a lot of random stuff that went right over the head of the audience ('Do you wanna go deeper?!') ...but he & Keith did a great job of riling up the crowd. 'Smack My Bitch Up' rounded off an energetic and fun show in controversial style... with a huge fireworks display wowing the crowd to mark the end of the day.

Come to think of it I really was quite lucky to see so many top UK acts in one place here. If this were England, there's no way I could've seen all of these bands on the same bill. Lucky me. Next: Day Two.