Summer Sonic 09

I do not have many photos, and those that I do have are either blurry, small, or blurry, small, and a strange shade of orange. This shall not deter me.

Those who do not know what Summer Sonic is... well, it's a bit like the Fuji Rock Festival, only with more rock music and less trance. If neither of these festivals mean anything to you... firstly, I pity you, and secondly, it doesn't really matter. Summer Sonic is basically just a festival - usually spanning over the course of a few days - with concerts on 5 different stages blaring continuous music.

The biggest stage was set up in the Chiba Marine Stadium, usually where baseball games are held. It looked something like this:


Melinda, Keren, and I left the house around noon because we needed to wait for our one-day-rental keitais to arrive. 2 hour train trip later, we found ourselves wandering dazedly into Makuhari Messe. We exchanged our special 13,000 yen-off invitations we'd received from Weekender for these: And mine was put on upside-down.

The first stage we found was indoors and air-conditioned, but the music wasn't fantastic so we quickly decided to move on. (Apparently Katy Perry had been scheduled to perform on that stage but she canceled last minute. Needless to say, Keren was devastated.)

Looking through our pamphlets we discovered that all the bands we wanted to see play were performing at the Marine Stage (see above photo), and so after lingering in the air-conditioning for a little while longer we hopped on a free shuttle bus en route to the stadium.

Then Keren broke her sandal. I gave her my pair and opted to go barefooted. We decided there that perhaps it hadn't been the wisest decision to wear sandals.

Did I mention? oh my god it was hot.


We excitedly entered in the middle of Dragon Ash's stage. The music was bizarre but had a good beat to dance to, and we dove headfirst into the crowd without hesitation. I used my expansive backside to break a path through the crowd till we were practically at the very front, and there we met a couple of young Army chicks (with a combined vocabulary consisting almost entirely of "fuck" and "hell yeah") with whom we moshed and elbowed people in the face joyfully.

It was then that we learned just how quickly our bodies could get dehydrated. And, after leaving the stadium on a quest for liquid, just how expensive it was to rehydrate.

Soonafter the straps to my bag broke and we spent an alarming amount of money investing in a coin locker, keeping only our phones and some bills in our pockets.

Paramore was next and simply brilliant, for a lack of a more expressive adjective. Hayley Williams has a great stage presence and I don't believe she went off-key once during the entire stage. Keren kept insisting that the lead guitarist winked at her, and Melinda and I kept trying to tell her that he was probably winking at the entire left side of the audience. She didn't listen to us.

During the stage, people kept trying to crowdsurf, only to be promptly pushed to the front of the crowd and hauled off by the sexy security guards. One of those people landed on my head mid-flail, and I came away from the concert sporting this war wound:


It was about half a centimeter deep and gushed blood at an alarming rate. I remember there being two guys standing in front of my wearing white shirts. I saw their white backs covered in blood stains, like after you'd thrown balloons full of red paint at a blank canvass, and thought, "Wow, I suppose those crowdsurfers must have given someone a bloody nose." It was only when a small girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a Hello Kitty bandaid that I realised I'd been the one to ruin their clothes.

Exhausted, we decided to conserve the rest of our strength for My Chemical Romance, who were scheduled to perform at 8:00. We decided to sit and watch Nine Inch Nails, not realising just how kickass they are live. I think it was about 7 minutes into their stage that we all looked at each other and wondered why we were headbanging like crazy whilst sitting here:

instead of joining the screaming crowd.

See that sky? Those were rainclouds. About halfway through NIN's stage the sky opened and it poured, as in electronic device-killing poured. It was amazing, though, I love rain and coupled with the music it just made everything seem more intense. Plus, it cooled down and about half the crowd left for shelter, so it was less Oh My God I Can't Breathe and more Wheeeee I Can Mosh Freely Now.

We squeezed to the very front in the chaos inbetween stages, and by the time My Chemical Romance started (with a bang, literally, since they had all sort of fireworks- synchronised with their songs- going in the back) we were right up close and personal. They were, of course, mindblowingly good, playing all of our favourite songs and at least four new songs from their soon-to-be-released album. Their fanbase in Japan really is huge, bigger than I thought it would be, everyone was singing the lyrics properly and everything. The bassist even had a t-shirt with "Mikey Fucking Way" in katakana, which I thought was a lovely touch. They were also the only band to use the B-stage: Gerard Way sang "Cancer" on it, and Melinda and Keren got really near him. I was one of the only ones to stay at the very front, watching the band as opposed to trying to get close to Gerard. At one point I was the only one looking up at the stage, and Bob saw me and waved with a big jolly smile on his face. He reminded me of a blond Santa Claus.

MCR was the final band to play, and at the end of the stage there was a lovely hanabi show, exploding directly over our heads.

It was certainly a day to remember. The bruises on my arms and feet certainly won't let me forget for the next week or two, at least.

Phew! This post got longer than I originally intended for it to be and still I haven't even recounted half of what happened. I don't know how I'm going to write a 600-word article about it for Weekender. When I write I'm tediously garrulous. I guess I'll figure something out.