Sonic The Headliners
By TIM DAVID HARVEY
What do Tokyo's Summer Sonic music festival and their Disney Sea theme park a few train stops over have in common?
Well, for one, they're not actually in Tokyo. More like the neighbouring prefecture of Chiba. A beautiful place, but I guess it doesn't have the same ring to it as Japan's capital and most famous city in the Land of The Rising Sun.
The other thing Disney Sea and Summer Sonic have in common is that in 2026, they are both celebrating their 25th anniversaries. Here's to 2001, like a Dr. Dre album.
A certain name-sharing hedgehog, still in his prime, is also celebrating his 35th in Japan.
And what a quarter century it's been for two places that draw everyone, especially in the Summer, to Tokyo Station. Not just for the beautiful building and views of it across the way, but the train change that takes most Tokyoites and people from Yokohama (hands up) next door to Chiba's nose.
Heading up court like the special Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers like, Summer Sonic, 26 basketball jerseys, showing love to the NBA.
The only thing that rivals the musically diverse Summer Sonic is the Fuji Rock festival that really amps up proceedings. We.were there last year to check out Haim and Vampire Weekend, but this year Massive Attack and The xx rocked out in the Naeba ski resort.
A month after July's hotter than ever Fuji rock, comes the outstanding Obon week headliner, Summer Sonic. You can watch sets by the beach and in a stadium, but if your skin is still peeling from the sunburn onslaught in the mountainous Fuji, then you can take some respite indoors for some convention centre like stages that are only mountain in name. And what's this? Cheap vending machines aplenty? Please...for the love of everything that's hydrated, please bring water with you (although food is not allowed), but when that's done, there as many vending machines as there are acts on the bill. And it's normal, and not high-priced either, like when you, say, ascend Mount Fuji. This is what I've heard, mind you. You think these legs are really scaling a mountain?
Saturday at the Mountain Stage was where it was at for us in a long weekend, headlined by The Strokes, that saw everyone from Jamiroquai to Jennie from BLACKPINK GO! The virtual insanity came from me, not realizing that this was an indoor affair, as I left it until late to make my way. Still, I did take in a big-three worth of acts that amazed.
Remember Suede? Well, they've still got it, unlike that coat you should have never worn out in the rain, Seinfeld. Bringing their iconic album imagery and that 90s indie rocker oasis of a feeling, gone in a blur of summer haze, back. Cycling through the classics and cuts deeper than the darkness of the sweat soaked shirt. And when they closed with the 'Beautiful Ones', like Prince smashing a picture, man, it was over!
Talking heads remembered the time in warmth nostalgia. Especially when this crowd found themselves in a beautiful arena, with a beautiful (husband or) wife. Thinking "how did (they) get here" as they were being serenaded by a seventy-something, decked out in all orange, like his Broadway band. A man who simply wanted to show his travel photos to the crowd. And that man was none other than the great David Byrne in all his American utopia. Amazing like his latest album ('Who Is The Sky?'), Byrne, baby, Byrne, there is nothing like this David. Part Broadway, part TV show, you gave to see this man at least once in your life. Once in a lifetime.
Sandwiched between Suede and David Byrne was top Japanese rock act Sakanaction, fresh off scooping up all the hardware at Japan's Music Awards for their Godzilla giant hit 'Kaiju' (which elicited roars from the crowd here). The bold and brilliant band that beautifully blends genres and homage like the Prince's and LCD Soundsystem's before them were in their element. The dual guitarists banging on single drums like a Haim 'Valentine'. And get this, the rush of the crowd filled out the arena even more than a Talking Head. Truth. I've got the little room for dancing to prove it. Although I still busted out the 'Pulp Fiction' homage 'Inari', latest single, moves.
Ichiro Yamaguchi, Ami Kusakari, Motoharu Iwadera, Emi Okazaki and Keiichi Ejima rolled through some of their greatest hits and best set-pieces, as lasers and 'Blade Runner' like projections of geishas scanned through the merchandise draped crowd, throwing up the diamond, like Jay-Z. With a new soundscape brought to bear, it got so hot for Sakanaction that there was enough perspiration to get a couple more bottles of Pocari Sweat. Maybe enough to fill an aquarium. Speaking of which, upon arrival at the nearby Kaihin-Makuhari station you could see the shadow of singer Ichiro behind a plastic screen, poster promoting the Sakanaquarium that's coming back this fall after selling out the K-Arena, two nights in a row, and other stadiums last year. So much so, surely Fuji Rock is calling next. The banners where everywhere in the station. Even where you touch your IC, Suica, or Pasmo pass at the ticket barrier. Sakanaction are taking over Tokyo like a kaiju. Screaming like a monster. Blooming in more than a whisper.
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