DAY ONE

A whole year is always a long time to wait for the next year’s Fuji Rock. Just remember if you are starting to feel the booty shakes of withdrawal symptoms as the summer comes to a close, there is always big Fuji’s undersung sibling, Asagiri Jam!

While Fuji has all the charm and grandeur of a top-tier international music festival, sometimes what you really need is something a little more intimate, a little greener and a little more chill. Fortunately Asagiri is just that. A much more relaxed vibe, a bit on the tie-dye and homemade granola enthusiast tip, lots of families, lots of dogs, full of charm.  

Taiko drum circles in the forest, a little tucked away take-all-comers DJ booth, dog runs, and plenty of places for kids to be kids. A bit of grown-ups letting their hair down. The weather on Saturday was everything anyone could ask for, warm with a little whiff of fall in the air. Fuji didn’t make an appearance, but they say the good things come to those who wait, don’t they.

The Rainbow Stage kicked off with Spain’s Xavi Sarria’s set of easily digestible pro-brotherhood and anti-fasist protest rock. It was a good intro to a weekend of good intentions and positivity. But music wasn’t the only thing on the menu, there was a surprisingly variety of things to eat and shop for. Wild-boar soup? Sure! Mystery wrapped ‘blind date’ books? Why not! Homemade jewelry workshop? Don’t mind if I do! Plenty of things to see and do and buy, and without the crush crowds of a lot of bigger festivals

Acts like the cosmic smooth funk band Ovall and the folksy vocal harmonies of Kiseru provided the perfect background music for the daylight hours, taking us by the hand and leading us into Asagiri night one. And that’s where things really started cooking.

Iceland’s Kiasmos accompanied sundown with their sweet, mesmerizing synth as the gathering clouds were kissed pink. Nothing beats a crisp mountain sunset in the autumn. Campfires were lit near the Rainbow Stage, the relaxed gradation from tents to loungers to standers as you made your way towards the stage. A wonderfully organic festival feeling. And then, miracle of miracles, Fuji-san poked her head out from behind the clouds to catch the end of the set

The big newsflash of the night was that Cornelius is 100% back in the game. His frenetic set was fresh, with a lot of retooled versions of old favorites all sounding a little less tame than usual. Fading down the pop and bringing up the bite. The dude sure puts on an engaging set to say the least, special props to longtime drummer Yuko Araki for kicking so much ass. This definitely started the party, and the one that really hammered home the point that Asagiri might not be big, but it can be huge.

While Cornelius was brash, Eiko Ishibashi set was straight up pillow-talk. Dreamy and gentle, flute and organ flittering in the night air. Spoiler though, biggest (and probably most predictable) surprise  of the night was Jim O’Rourke providing moments of characteristic jagged guitar. The Moonshine stage is definitely the moodier of the two, and this was the night’s vibiest set. Also Jim O’Rourke has forever and will forever look at home in a cardigan. Their set ended with an upswelling into ragged noise which was fairly breathtaking, and really made it feel like a hard set to follow. It would take a real idol-caliber star…. 

Fortunately Asagiri had a nantetatte level one on their hands with Japanese pop legend Koizumi Kyoko together with renowned poet Ito Seiko. Their set was a rollicking golden era j-pop dub remix bit of wildness mixed with Seiko’s poetry in a way that absolutely shouldn’t work on paper but absolutely does in practice. Not too often you get to see a legend perform a set so out left field that feels so right. Kyon Kyon forever.

The mountain temperature dropped deeply as night fell, but that only made returning to campfires and warm sleeping bags the more inviting. After all, we all had a full day of revelry ahead of us.

DAY TWO

Waking up to murmured campground stirrings and the chirping of birds, emerging from your tent to see blue skies and an unoccluded Mount Fuji, these are the things that make Asagiri Jam special. Sunday was starting on the right foot.

There’s just undeniably fun and wholesome about radio taiso in the morning. Somehow synchronized calisthenics just seems to make sense here, really putting the camp in camp. And if that didn’t wake you up and get your blood pumping, the taiko performance afterwards certainly did!

Homecomings’ set was a nice amuse bouche of solid indie pop, but things really kicked off with Taiwan’s Elephant Gym, their bubbly funky set was loose and jammy, but not at all sloppy or unfocused, and it fit the pre-noon festival mood perfectly.  Even repeated sound issues couldn’t distract the early lunch crowd. That is until a large tent blew about 50 meters into the air, floated there like a kite for nearly a minute directly above the audience, then flew off nearly colliding with the Rainbow Stage itself. Lead singer KT Chang’s follow-up question from the stage of ‘nani happened?’ was perhaps the cutest moment of the festival. Never a dull moment!!

Aratani Shohei’s soulful pop and JJJ’s forceful hip hop pushed the day forward and kept spirits up. But never young beach’s Abe Yuma really got things vibing. Well crafted pop confection best served under the sun. Little notes of surf rock, bossa nova, funk, basically channeling any genre that makes you bob your head and think about summer. It is hard to create a good song, but even harder than that is knowing the right amount of instrumentation bells and whistles to add. Abe nailed it. Especially the backing vocals.

Dusk was heralded by Mono No Aware, with their casual ‘well, should we just do this thing?’ fairly off kilter approach to an indie set. One of things that really sets them apart from their contemporaries is that they are quite unpredictable without being terribly challenging. That’s a fine line to walk, and they did it well.

Every time the hands on the clock point towards meal it was remarkable how seriously folks at Asagiri took it. There could be a stand that’s totally open selling perfectly serviceable festival food, but your average Asagiri-er is almost always going to pick the well known place with the 20 minute wait. It leads one to wonder whether people are making this choice based on previous knowledge, or if the allure of the line alone is strong enough to pull people in. Regardless, it can seem that people are here for the music and the food in equal measure.

Although Ghostly Kisses set wasn’t quite the last of the festival, it was close enough, and as the band’s name suggests it held something ethereal, fragile and slightly sad. It was a pretty, dreamy set, contrasting with Stuts J hip hop peppered DJing with full live band set at the Rainbow stage. They promised to get the crowd moving and warmed up on a chilly night, and by all accounts they appear to have. Undeniably an act well suited to a big stage at a medium sized festival, they were smooth and easily digestible. At the same time, Todd Terje was on the Moonshine stage spinning some classic funk and soul grooves with a noticeably booty shaking-er reaction. It was a choose your own destiny sort of situation. (Although the out in the open secret is that the place that was going the wildest was the Carnival Star DJ booth. But that was true for the course of the festival)

And that left the last choice… Qrion’s thumping electro DJ set or Hitsuji Bungaku’s indie rock. Qrion had people moving more than any other act of the weekend, and her plonking synth sounds were pretty irresistible. Hitsuji Bungaku on the other hand felt like they were channeling ghosts of a grungier guitar vocal bass three piece era of indie with their set. Even their lack of stage adornment or special lighting seemed charmingly anachronistic. Impressive that the last few years have seen them rise to Rainbow Stage closer, but they really held their own. Sweet but not cute, and angsty but not dark. Either way you went, there was no wrong answer.

In the end, Asagiri almost feels more like a hometown matsuri than a traditional music festival, but the good news is we are all neighbors here despite how far we may live apart from each other. If you’ve never been, you really should.