Summer Sonic 2007 - Osaka, Japan

Well, the weekend before last I went to the Saturday of the weekend music festival called Summer Sonic, here in Osaka. It was probably the most well-behaved, organized and cleanest event I have ever attended. It was just surreal. No problems, no drunken louts (except for us) and no queues...at all...for beer, food, or the porta-loos. Incredible. The only queue that formed was for the merchandise! Brilliant. As you can see, I'm still wooing the women with just my mere presence...we got married later on in the day (she was feeding me tequila...whaddya gonna do??!)



We arrived there at about 8.30am and started into our first pint at 9am...it was going to be one of those days :) I went with PJ, YN, and PJ's friend over on hols from Oz, Michael. It was a brilliant day. The venue was split up into 5 stages and all within 10 minutes walking distance from each other. The sun was blazing and it took it's toll on a lot of people at the end of the day. The "Oasis" area was set up for vendors selling food and in the centre of the circular walkabout was a covered-over seating area which was just full of pleasant, calm, and somewhat startled JP people when we sat down next to them. In fact, I was surprised at the lack of gaijin at the gig and to be honest, I was glad. Any gaijins we did meet were up for the laugh and were very nice people indeed.

YN brought a whiteboard for people to scribble a message on for us to pose and take a photo. that was a good laugh and we took advantage of the non-English speakers, predominantly hot women, and so in the spirit of feeling bad in the sober light of day, i won't post them here. If you want a copy, you can email me requests :)

Now, onto the bands. The highlights for me were Bright Eyes, Arctic Monkeys, UNKLE (who were just mindblowing), DJ Shadow/Cut Chemist, Polyphonic Spree (the surprise of the day), and my favorite perfomance was by Jose Gonzalez. He was just unbelievable on his own for 75% of the acoustic set. I skipped Cyndi Lauper to see Jose and I was so glad I did. She was appalling apparently. He played most of Veneer and some new tunes which were top class. I definitely recommend seeing him live.

Polyphonic Spree are a massive band, with 22 members at least on stage, playing symphonic tunes in a cult like fashion. All band members were wearing the same clothing and for a second or two I thought I was at a mass religious rally being brain-washed to believe shite. However, their music is nothing like that. It's just upbeat, massive pop-music. Definitely worth a listen to and if you can catch them live, I'd highly recommend it.

Getting home was a pain in the ass but the orderly queue to the bus was surprising. I arrived back in the de gaff close to midnight after a detour for ramen in Umeda. All in all, a great day...

Last weekend was spent birding and it was a great weekend to boot, despite the searing temperatures that Japan's heatwave is tormenting us with. As the weekends birding deserves a post of its own, I shall post before the weekend. I am off to the IAAF World Championship on Sunday in Osaka!!! I can't wait...


A BIG THANKS TO YN FOR THE PHOTOS!!!!!

Carmo's Diet: this week, I have mostly been eating seaweed and feta cheese

Carmo's Birds: wait for it...

Carmo's Birds for Byrdy: the tequila chick at Summer Sonic...