The current state of the former Orange Court. In the distance is the Cafe de Paris and an amusement area featuring buskers, a drum circle, and bowling alley.
Let’s hear it for [company name] who kindly lent us these amps. We can’t afford our own.
Jim O’Rourke (in Japanese)
[wpvideo 4zAwZUV6]
All you need is love …
[wpvideo DCFi5yLl]
Sharing the love
softLOUDsoftREPEAT
When we first saw Jim O’Rourke’s name on the Fuji roster it was attached to someone named Gaman Gilberto, which we naively assumed was some sort of Brazilian collaborator–O’Rourke doing bossa nova is hardly a novel idea. Actually, it’s the name of his backing band, all Japanese musicians. “Gaman” is Japanese for “patience” or “fortitude.”
O’Rourke has lived in Japan for the past decade-plus and seems appropriately acclimatized. His music hasn’t change drastically, though in a sense it has regressed to a kind of nostalgia for ‘70s singer-songwriters. Still, his noon set at the Field of Heaven was full of quirk, starting with his getup. Gnomish in his favorite soft hat, baggy jeans, carework shirt and full beard liberally streaked with gray, he was the anti-rock star, a sensibility confirmed a little story he told at one point in his shaky but serviceable Japanese about how drummers in the 80s always wore the same thing on stage and he hated it.
Though the songs were conventionally structured, O’Rourke expanded them with long introductions and coda that adhered to the ‘90s indie dynamic template of soft-loud-soft-loud ad infinitum. Some of the grooves were so strong as to threaten the equilibrium of the ensemble, who couldn’t quite keep up with their leaders volume choices. And the quieter passages were so delicate you could hear O’Rourke breathing. As for the singing, he was in key (not a small feat given the thrust of the songs) and could belt like a bluesmaster. (text: Philip Brasor)
Feet first
Txarango is a Catalan band that’s proud of their roots. They sing in their native language and made a point of teaching the large Sunday morning crowd at the White Stage a few useful phrases, one of which wasn’t “dance your ass off,” because no one needed to be told that. With a healthy complement of horns and a lead singer whose energy level belied the scorching sun overhead, Txarango dips into rock, ska, gypsy party music, all infused with an Iberian regard for rhythm and melody. We’re not sure if it’s a good idea to get yourself so worked up at the beginning of a day that threatens to be hot and dry, but isn’t that why you come to Fuji in the first place? (text: Philip Brasor; photos: Mark Thompson)
Kicking a dead mouse
The DJ-dance guy known as Deadmau5 went on just after the sun set, when the sky was still a deep blue in the west, behind the Green Stage. Our experience with this sort of big beat electronic dance music has mostly been at the Red Marquee in the middle of the night, so the timing seemed a little strange. And as the guy in the creepy mouse head hit his second or third climax we wondered if any of the thousands of people in the vast field jumping up and down could explain to us what made Deadmau5 better than any of those other beep-boop-beep-beep DJs, because we know he gets paid a truckload of money for one of these gigs. We won’t deny how effective he is at getting people to move, but there isn’t a whole lot of nuance to what he does. (text: Philip Brasor; photos: Mark Thompson)
Up-and-coming bands get their day in the sun … or under the moon, as it were, at Rookie-a-Go Go.
[wpvideo mAd8Gfa4]
Abandon all hope … (but there is another exit, if it gets too intense).
[wpvideo QiJG7vNF]
Got those roast chicken blues, and got ‘em bad.