The Japan Times @ Fuji Rock

For reasons that remain unexplained, the London experimental trio The Comet Is Coming started their late-night Red Marquee set about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. Consequently, we arrived in the middle of a song that had already climaxed dramatically. It was a bit of a letdown, since the whole point of the band is the way they build to a chaotic finish.

But that’s slightly misleading, since Comet’s real achievement is how they start at 10 and just keep getting louder and wilder. The focus of the band is the keyboards of Danalogue the Conqueror, who seems to lead the group and has the most extroverted personality. On stage he stood behind his bank of instruments and made the most out of the band’s hip-hoppy grooves.

But the band’s secret weapon is saxophonist King Shabaka, whose wailing insistence never lets up, even when the arrangement calls for a bit of quiet. Though often categorized as jazz, the band’s music is more like garage rock taken to the extreme: The idea is to build tension until there’s nothing left to compromise. The audience dug the dynamic, but you could sense that some felt there was more to life than wailing incessantly for an hour. 

The rest of us couldn’t get enough, and in that sense The Comet Is Coming is the jazz cognate of Death Grips, another trio that takes its chosen genre — hip hop — to extremes that no one else knew existed. The fact is, club kids like the ones who went crazy as Comet itself get their point probably better than bona fide jazzbos do. 

It’s important to remember that the Field of Heaven was originally conceived as a venue for Phish. They headlined all three nights at the inaugural Naeba festival on the Field of Heaven. Since then, Heaven has become associated with something broader: authenticity as characterized by blues, soul, world music, and not just general instrumental chops. 

In a sense, Khruangbin, the Houston power trio who takes Asian pop forms and dubs them up into infectious guitar music, brings the Field of Heaven back to its roots. Though not technically a jam band, their reliance on improvisational interpretations of classic pop feels more genuine, and the huge crowd that showed up for their Sunday night gig was proof of that.

It’s also important to remember that the band is not as serious as they seem. Guitarist Mark Speer and bassist Laura Lee wore what might be charitably referred to as space drag — he dressed top to toe in gold lame with pointed shoulders, she in a kind of white-red Barbarella getup. They also wear those matching wigs, making them kindred spirits with that other anxious pop artist who appeared this weekend, Sia.

As the grooves developed and pulsed the pair would occasionally resort to sexy coordinated moves. At one point, when partaking of what looked like cocktails, they toasted the audience without missing a beat.When Speer finally addressed the crowd, it was as the coolest hippie in the joint. “Hey y’all, we’re really happy that you dig this groovy sound.” Ok, well, that’s what it sounded like to me.

The point is that Khruangbin is not chops-oriented. They’d likely be laughed out of the jam band fraternity (though their drummer, Donald Johnson Jr., could probably get a job with any top notch funk or jazz outfit), but they understand the vibe that presides at the Field of Heaven, a place where the Fuji Faithful go to lose themselves in expansive music. 

There’s something a bit grand about this group’s name, considering there are only five members, and after watching their performance under a blazing hot sun at the Field of Heaven on Sunday, you get the impression that they have a lot of fun with expectations. After all, they are essentially three traditional Thai instrumentalists backed by a rhythm section that is seriously into funk. 

The allocation of parts seems fairly simple. The electrified Thai lute, the pin, is the lead instrument and does pretty much what a guitar normally does, while the pipes fill in for synths, keyboards, and strings. The guy on the finger cymbals isn’t going to take the drummer’s job away, but he wasn’t chopped liver, either.

But it was the rhythm section, especially the bass player, Piyanart Jotikasthira, who not only formed the melodic bedrock but also provided English language explanations of the songs. He would say the title of the song in Thai and then translate it into English (“This is called ‘Tricky Little Deer’,” though I wonder if it was actually titled “Tricky Little Dear”?) One of the most dramatic songs they played was called “Chasing the Cow,” which he said was a song about farmers. Never realized farm life was that exciting.

But it was the funk that got the crowd moving. When they started, there was only a handful of people in front of the stage, but by mid-point the whole field was rocking and grooving.

The lute player, Pinpech Thipprasert, has got to be both the Jerry Garcia and Ray Parker Jr. of his particular instrument, because there were passages when he was wailing, and that immovable back beat just kept pounding and pounding. The pipes would often add counterpoint on the off beats, like the organ fills in the old JBs. You come for the exotic, slightly misleading name, and you stay to get down.

It was a cinch that Australian singer-songwriter Stella Donnelly was going to win the hearts of the Fuji Faithful as soon as she walked on the stage. Diminutive but wearing a big smile and even bigger earrings, she exuded the kind of sincere confidence of an ingenue who knows not only what she’s worth but how to make it worth it to others.

She wisely did her first four songs solo, just her and her electric guitar, which she played with a knowing simplicity that indicated real chops even if she wasn’t going to show them off. But it was mainly the voice that made everyone fall in love with her: big but not brassy, pure but not mannered, high but not girlish like other indie singers of her ilk. It was a full instrument that cut through the Red Marquee like a knife.

It also put paid to her subject matter, which is mostly about what jerks most people are, and by most people, I mean men. Though English songs tend to go over the heads of the Japanese audience if they haven’t studied them beforehand, Donnelly’s “You Owe Me,” about an asshole boss who “jerks off to CCTV” seemed to make a deep impression. Hasn’t everyone had such a boss? In any case, the song sparked an ovation that was obviously not just a reaction to the limpid melody and Donnelly’s delivery.

After getting the crowd to say hello to Donnelly’s dad back in Australia, watching presumably on YouTube, she brought out her band, which she described as “old friends,” meaning they’ve known each other as human beings longer than they have as musicians, and the camaraderie showed. At one point, she and her utility man, Jack, did some “dance moves” (though at first I thought she said “dad moves,” which, considering the pokey quality of the movements, wasn’t far off) to the song “Die,” which isn’t an imperative, but used in the sense of “I don’t want to…” In any case, it was a very upbeat and fun song, hence the lockstep choreography, which had more to do with school calisthenics than with Janet Jackson. Unfortunately, the shed was packed, so there was no room for the audience to hop along, though many tried their best, cracking Donnelly up at one point. Not many new artists get to appreciate the whole spectrum of Japanese audience participation during their very first show in the country. She obviously felt blessed.

The crowd at the opening act on the Green Stage Sunday was smaller than usual, most likely owing to the probability that campers were still mopping up their tents and hotel stayers were hair-drying their sodden shoes. They really missed something. The Inner Mongolian big band, Hanggai, put on quite a show under mostly cloudy skies. 

Dressed in a smattering of traditional clothing but mostly looking like your average California slacker rock outfit, the huge group brought along its 7-member horn section, which didn’t always have a lot to do instrumentally, but their collective background voices gave the group its main selling point: irresistible choruses that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Front Man Iichi, sporting the coolest sunglasses at the festival, reportedly started out his music career in a punk band, and there was something of the snotty showman in his stage demeanor, goosing the crowd’s early morning desire to get this party started while demonstrating same by going through can after can of samples from Japan’s finest corporate breweries. “Kampai” seemed to be the only Japanese he knew, but he knew it well.

Though at least two members did some throat singing, and Iichi has said in interviews that his mission is to bring the traditional music of Mongolia to the city (the band is based in Beijing), for the most part the songs were a hodgepodge of traditional tropes and pop skills. One song, built around some sinuous trumpet lines, was a full-blooded blues, and one galloping horse song started out in bluegrass mode, complete with Chinese banjo and the Mongolian version of the erhu taking the fiddle parts. Pretty soon the song had taken on a life of its own and just kept getting faster and faster. “Ghost Riders in the Sky” on the Gobi Desert. 

The party purport was further promoted by the introductions. A non-Asian woman, the only member of the horn section in traditional dress, introduced the section in English using the kind of lingo you’d hear in a Vegas lounge act, except she concluded her stint by offering, “I hope you dance your ass off.” I’m sure she wasn’t disappointed. 

How come nobody told us about this tropical storm? Though the Fuji Faithful know to expect some rain over the weekend, The relentless deluge that started dropping water bombs on the festival in the late afternoon was exceptional in both its intensity and duration.

There are few places to seek shelter from the elements at the festival, and, naturally, they were all stuffed with soggy punters: the Red Marquee and the Blue DJ tent at the west end; the Orange Court eating areas at the east end. Stuck out on the east end when it really started coming down, we decided to forego George Porter Jr. and American Football and hid out at the Cafe de Paris, where a DJ was spinning deep classic rock and folk-country album cuts. When he put on “I Shall Be Released” we wondered if we’d ever get out of the makeshift cafe, whose floor boards were erupting with geysers even inside the tent. At least they had alcohol.

Rather than risk another drenching we skipped over the puddles to a little makeshift eatery near the back entrance to our hotel, a place called Don’s Cafe (Don is apparently a dog; you can buy T-shirts and coasters with his panting mug), which was packed. The only food they had left at that hour was soup and pickles, but they really hit the spot. Don’s also had entertainment: a very bad Japanese comedian riffing in English; a very good Japanese country band featuring shakuhachi and a repertoire that included a Japanese-language version of Talking Heads’ “Heaven”; and a sui generis female singer sporting a white wig and accompanied by a single guitarist (very good) and some old guy shouting encouragement and adding percussion. There was even a little boy who seemed familiar with the act. She sang as if this was her big chance at stardom, here on the margins of Fuji Rock at Don’t Cafe with the rain pouring down outside. Sounds like something from a movie.

Courtney Barnett at the White Stage | Mark Thompson photos

A good part of Courtney Barnett’s success, especially in Japan where she’s managed to generate a dedicated cult, is her seemingly unforced honesty, a quality that is manifest in the Australian rocker’s songs, which sound like a person you really want to know talking in plain language. The fact that she can marry this artistic sensibility to kickass guitar rock without making it sound ironic or contrary only makes her that much more unusual, even in the rarefied world of indie rock.

She had a lot to contend with during her afternoon set at the White Stage, for the most part an audience whose exuberance was literally dampened by one of those downpours that soaks you to the bone in less than a minute. There was actually a river running through the north side of the White Stage field. She voiced her appreciation for us standing there just to hear her play, and then she ripped the place up.

Another saving grace was that she looked great. Gone are the baggy T-shirts and homemade haircut. She looked rock star ready in her pure white tank top and tight black jeans, and when she tore through one her patented pick-and-strum (no pick!) solos the crowd got back a little of its mojo.

“You know this is the best festival in the world,” she said near the end of her set. “Thanks so much for making it possible for me to come.” Gratuitous pleasantries in most artists’ mouths, but Barnett makes her living telling it like it is.

She even played a new song called “Everybody Hates You,” proving that honesty cuts both ways. When she started her last song, the rain stopped, as if the weather decided it would give her, and her fans, a break.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra | Mark Thompson photos

Ruban Nielson, the leader of New Zealand’s-by-way-of-Portland band Unknown Mortal Orchestra, doesn’t seem to know what he wants to be: a guitar god, a slick R&B vocalist, or a fusion bandleader. He demonstrated all three skills within the first four minutes of taking the White Stage on Saturday afternoon before a very appreciative audience, though they didn’t quite know what to think when he almost immediately jumped off the stage with his guitar and continued playing a solo while five security guys and a roadie followed him as he went deep into the audience. Guitar god? Check.

Several songs later he did the same thing but without a guitar. All he had was the mic, as he kept singing a sweet love song. Sex-you-up R&B lover man? Check.

Then, a song or two later he conducted the whole band as they chugged into an improvisational freakout that ended with a manic sax solo by his father, Chris. Fusion pretensions? Check.

The band they reminded more than any was probably Steely Dan, not so much in terms of sound but rather ambition. The tricky time and key signatures should indicate pretensions of a less laudable sort, but UMO pulls them off so seamlessly you don’t register them as “difficult,” and there’s a Top 40 vibe to Nielsen’s songwriting that makes you wonder if he would have been a star if he’d come up in the ’70s instead of the ’90s or ’00s. As it is he’s just another indie mensch who tends to get misclassified.

And if it’s any consolation to him, I did see one white dude mouthing the words to “So Good At Being In Trouble,” so obviously Nielsen’s reach is longer than I thought. And when he tried an Elvis move that weirdly turned into a JB move you know he yearns for the kind of pop popularity he thinks he deserves. I think he deserves it, too.

Melina Mae Duterte is a real SoCal kid, and writes like one. As Jay Som she revives the sunny West Coast sound we tend to associate with laid back guys like Ned Doheny, though in her case the songs service a much more personal, circumscribed world. She calls herself a bedroom singer-songwriter because that’s literally where she produces music, and even with a full band in tow at the Red Marquee on Saturday afternoon, she looked and sounded like a lone soul: dressed ultra casually in camo cargo pants, a loose-fitting khaki T-shirt and floppy white hat, she could have been a wannabe army reserve slacker.

Her music would have been perfect in an open air setting with the sun shining, but it was raining again, and while the shed preserved the illusion of fair weather, it put a damper on the sunny feelings. The crowd dug the groove — this is just the kind of ’70s style music Japanese kids seem to like, and while the volume and hardness of attack came and went, the melodic impact never wavered. A few people were even dancing, though Jay Som doesn’t play what you would normally call dance music. More like sway music. And every so often there was nice soaring guitar line to add that requisite rock rush. It must get real crowded in that bedroom sometime.

Saturday morning opened in much the same way Friday morning did: cloudy and breezy, occasionally windy, in fact. By the time Tempalay began their 11:30 a.m. set at the Red Marquee a huge crowd had set up camp in and around the shed, making it rather difficult to find even a good standing spot from which to watch the group, though, in truth, what you ended up watching was the band in silhouette against a screen of clever and often disturbing videos. The music was anything but disturbing, though maybe it was meant to be.

Tempalay’s raucous R&B has a jerry-rigged quality that makes you wonder if the song they’re playing is going to fall apart at any moment. The mind-frying “Sonic Wave” is cued to nursery rhyme couplets that bleed over into rap, while the purposely sloppy guitar lines challenge the assumption that this is some kind of earnest jam. At one point, in fact, things did fall apart and the band had to take a break to deal with an unexplained technical issue, thus giving them an opportunity to joke with the audience about the administration of Fuji Rock and their own very small part in making it a wonderful festival — or something like that. (They emerged from the Rookie A Go Go Stage in 2015)

Which is to say, Tempalay works to subvert logic. vocalist-guitarist Ryoto Ohara’s playful falsetto is the only really emotional tool in their sonic armory, most of which is aimed squarely at the funny bone. In interviews the band says they want to make the audience at least a little uncomfortable, and I’m not sure they succeeded on Saturday morning. Nobody left during the set, and after it was over, smiles were all you saw.

Kathy Yaeji Lee, who goes by her given Korean name as an artist, was clearly happy to be at the Red Marquee a bit after midnight. It was her first show in Japan and despite the almost narcotic quality of her brand of house music, she exuded excitement, prowling the stage and sing-speaking, sometimes even whispering, her personal stories about being a Korean-American woman in the 21st century.

Since it was raining, the venue was probably more crowded than it would have been otherwise, and the hushed quality of the audience’s attention was almost creepy, as if they’d been hypnotized. And there is only so much Yaeji can do with her unusual sound unless she breaks into dance mode, which she approached but never to the extent that people were going to start moving with any kind of exertion. She successfully brought you into her dream, the effects of which lasted longer than I would have expected. Or maybe I was just sleepy.

Maybe it was jet lag, but during her various non-musical interactions with the audience during her Red Marquee performance, R&B singer Sabrina Claudio made it clear she thought it was after dark, even though her set started at 2 p.m. I mean, the Red Marquee is a bit murky, but not that murky.

“It’s an honor to be here tonight,” she said, and the prodded the audience to exude more “energy,” which seemed a tall order considered that it was nigh on nap time and Claudio’s brief is slow jams — the slower and slinkier, the better. She even had the gall to try out new songs on us! (To be fair, the crowd in general didn’t seem familiar with her work.) Still, while her attempt to make contact was a bit on the awkward side it was greatly appreciated. Japanese music fans just love the personal touch.