lioness in japan

In a bid to counteract the lethargy that comes with extremely hot weather, I am blogging about fun summer activities like the music festival, Summer Sonic, I went to last Sunday. Although the aircon in the office has been lowered to decent levels, the afternoon sun shines directly on my desk — this means I feel like I’m being baked alive.

I took refuge in the fact that the kangaroo felt ill so I followed him home at 4pm. It is frankly an abuse of my position, but hey, as long as it doesn’t affect my job, right? It’s one of the perks of being a web worker…

Isn’t this what anyone would love in this heat…? We had giant mugs of ice-cold beer before we headed over to the Summer Sonic arena. I can almost remember how it felt washing down my throat…

The Chiba Marine Stadium and the Mukahari Messe were sprawling event spaces that had six different massive stages. The scale of Summer Sonic was phenomenal because I am used to seeing concerts in just one big venue. The kangaroo thought it was way bigger than Aussie events which usually have three stages max. It took as long as 20 minutes to reach one end to the other and there was even a shuttle bus for those who prefer not to walk.

This was a performance of The Kooks, an up-and-coming Brit pop band. I didn’t know most of the acts since I am totally out of the loop when it comes to music but the vibe was great. We were just sipping cold beers on the spectator stand while taking in the jangly riffs and fist-pumping crowd.

This is Junkie XL, a DJ outfit that defined ‘90s electronica apparently. It was definitely a top act but it was fairly short as it ended in 45 minutes — in fact, all the acts were on a similar schedule. The Japanese are really punctual even for such music events. It felt a little weird jumping up and down to house beats in the mid-afternoon in a warehouse-like space but the love of music was just palpable. I am always amazed at how passionate the Japanese are about music — they would pay a lot of money just to see their favourite act and they really dance like there’s no tomorrow.

In between acts, we strolled around looking at food stalls and merchandise stops. Look, you could buy Paul Smith T-shirts at Summer Sonic. It’s such a full-scale carnival of what’s hot now.

We popped by the beach area to see what was going on. There was an Aussie act playing reggae tunes to the Aboriginal drone pipe which was kind of cool and laidback. I know it looks like it was about to rain and it really did much later in the night. Again, the humidity was unbearable…

That’s the kangaroo and me waiting for Coldplay. I was so excited. I’ve seen them perform twice so it was going to my third and they just get better and better…

They were just so awesome.

You can’t see Chris Martin and the rest but they were on stage alright.

Related posts:

1. Racism in Japan
2. Do I need a bib?
3. Onsen indulgence

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