2007-10-05 - 8:56 p.m.

This leg of the summer tour started at Bear’s Picnic Music Festival in the town of Milton in central Pennsylvania. It was a quick in and out but it was a blast. Saw a great local band that was on the alternate stage just before us called Cabinet. After spending the night locally we made our way to Dulles International Airport for an evening flight to Oakland where the following day we opened for the String Cheese Incident (for the last time for the foreseeable future) at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA. It was a great flight on Jetblue. You get your own personal tv with Direct TV! We had a morning call for load and sound check. Our good friends Hot Buttered Rum performed before us as well and we ran into them straight off as we arrived. Picking started up backstage in the bright sunlit, Berkeley morning. Nothing like playing some bluegrass with friends to wake you right up! The Greek is a fantastic venue and the show is just as magnificent! All the bands played great and the jams during SCI’s set were epic! We went from there to a dungeon like club nearby to play a sold-out benefit for Conscious Alliance. It was fun but hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. It didn’t need to be. It could have been so much more had a larger, more appropriate venue been chosen. After a short sleep in the airport La Quinta (Spanish for right behind the Denny’s) we are dropped at SFO by Phil and Stacey for our flight to Tokyo, Japan and our inaugural performance at the Fuji Rock Festival. It was a real drag to not have them with us; the label only provided tickets for band and two crew. Heavy hearted goodbyes were said and we were exhorted to kick some ass in Japan. We checked in our mountain of gear and boarded our flight to the Land of the Rising Sun! It could be dangerous that they give you free alcohol on international flights but I indulge in a few just to take off the caffeine edge I’d worked on all morning. We fly forward into time, crossing the International Dateline and landing tomorrow. Very strange! We were picked up by Kaz, a Japanese journalist and the person most responsible for our coming to Japan and Chiaki, who works for Vivid Records, the label that licensed Elko in Japan. Kaz drove one van and a sweet guy from the label (can’t remember his name... it’s hell getting old... not recommended) drove the other van. For some reason we landed at an airport 1 1/2 hrs. from Tokyo. On the drive in we passed a large airport just outside of town. Kaz explains it’s like the difference between JFK and Newark airports. The one where we landed was the one for international flights. The first 1/2 hr of the drive was through the countryside; it looked much like home except for the rice paddies, and then an hour of driving into and through greater Tokyo. We were first taken to Vivid Sound Studio where we'll be recording a live CD and DVD. We met the staff who helped us load our gear in and as we were standing around in one of the offices the president of the label, Fumio, came in and said, "Who's bossman?" Todd just stood there. Kaz pointed at Todd saying, "He's the boss." The president then faced Todd, pulled a business card out of a leather case and bowed and handed the card to Todd with two hands. Todd took the card and said thanks. This was followed by a sort of awkward silence as we stared across the chasm of culture and language. The moment eventually passed and polite conversation, such as it was, ensued. Too late I realized we had witnessed the Japanese tradition of respectfully exchanging business cards as a formality and sign of mutual respect. We said our goodbyes for now and went to check in to our hotel. We each had a little room about the size you would get on a cruise ship. Very nice and complete with a very fast ethernet connection which was a bonus. Shortly we were gathered to go out to dinner. We walked through a small neighborhood down small, winding, one way streets to the commercial district of a part of Tokyo known as Naka Megure. We were led by Kaz and soon joined by Chiaki. We were seated in a back room with two large picnic sorta tables where we spread out and ordered drinks. Soon the group grew with addition of Fumio and Tomo, one of the studio hands. Then followed by the fellow who drove one of the vans (whose name I still can’t remember) and Chiaki’s daughter who spent half the time doing what any American adolescent would be doing... texting her friends! The food, beer and sake just kept coming. It was like a Japanese tapas bar! I felt like Anthony Bourdain there for a couple of hours. After much food and dozens of kanpei’s! ( a Japanese “Bottoms Up”) we all rose at Tomo’s urging to respectfully say goodbye to his (and ours, I guess) boss, Fumio. As I was sitting on the back wall, it was difficult to remain standing as the table was cutting into my legs. To relieve the discomfort I slowly sank down to a semi-sitting position. It may have been the sake or my imagination or a combination but I swore Fumio bore a hole in my head with his eyes for such indolence and I immediately stood up, ignoring the pain. Moments later he was all smiles and off he went into the Tokyo night. On the way back some of the guys stopped off at a sake bar but I was dead so the rest of us staggered back to our hotel. A moment for a broad generality from someone who’s been in this country less than 24 hrs...... Tokyo and Japan in general is, by orders of magnitude, the cleanest city/country I've ever been in. There is very little pollution or litter. We had the first part of the day to have a walk around and see a little of the neighborhood. I got up just in time to get the free breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Holy crap, Japanese breakfast is weird. Mostly slimy, unrecognizable stuff that didn’t really taste that great. They did have some great miso soup with little cockle shells in it. I love miso and this was quite good. After breakfast Carey, John, Jro, Grubb, Mike and I went in search of a place to change out some American money for Yen. It proved to be a bit too much for Grubb and Mike who dropped out of the hunt after we struck out at a few banks. The rest of us finally figured out how to take a couple of trains (after a couple of missed stops) to a part of Tokyo that looked a lot like Times Square. Apparently at night this part of town is lit up like 500,000 Christmas trees. We found the foreign money exchange and changed some money and then we found, praise be to the universe... a Starbucks! Of course a cup of coffee cost $3.25 but hey, I need my Joe! We found a huge HMV record store and found Elko! It was cool to find our record in a huge, chain record store half way around the world! It was a lot easier to find our way back to a our hotel when the time came to go back. We got collected at the hotel to head over to the studio. We get set up and got sounds for the recording. It all went well. We played for around 30 people crammed into the small studio. Apparently some of them were either record store owners or radio dj's. That’s cool. The radio over here is very diverse. You can hear classic rock, bebop, Frank Sinatra, Bob Marley and Japanese pop all on the same station. After the show Fumio took us out again. This time it was one of those places that you take your shoes off and have your own private room. More weird food and sake... kampie!!! Afterwards he took us to an English pub owned by a crazy Canadian dude. He was given an Elko disc and he put it on and informed everyone in the bar that we were on our way to Fuji Rock. Instant friends. He bought everyone a couple of rounds. I knew things were getting wild when I looked up and Jro was pouring drinks behind the bar! The owner even offered him a job as bartender! In the morning a bus came to pick us up and off to Fuji Rock. It took another hour and more to get out of Tokyo. The festival hired a professional interpreter to help and boy did he! He's also a film maker and he brought along a wild documentary he just finished about the conference on LSD held on the occasion of Albert Hoffman's (the inventor of LSD) 100th birthday. Amazingly he's still alive and still sharp as a tack. His interview was the most amazing. Very cool stuff. Slowly the cityscape slipped away to be replaced by the rural Japanese countryside. It seems like everyone has a rice paddy; deep green and terraced, it looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Mountains slowly went from the background to the foreground and then we were amongst them. We drove into a tunnel that went on forever. Seven miles later we came out the other side. We drove straight through the center of a mountain! It was like Khazad-Dum... the Mines of Moria. Half way through I was on my guard for a Balrog! The road wound on and up into the mountains and after 4 1/2 hours we came to the Naeba Ski Resort, Yuzawa-machi, Niigata, Japan; the home of the Fuji Rock Festival. We checked in and after a bit were taken to the Red Marquee to load in. We were not prepared for the size of the venue. I had in my mind that the Red Marquee was a club in the hotel when in fact it was a huge shed on the grounds of the ski resort that held around 5000 people! I was worried we wouldn't fill the place. Boy was I wrong! We were the first band on and the place was packed to the gills with an additional crowd about double that size packed outside to the tree line. I'd say we played for at least 10-12,000 absolutely crazed Japanese people who clapped and screamed their heads off. It was by a wide margin the loudest crowd we've ever played for. At one point after a song I yelled over to Jro and I think he yelled something back; at least I saw his lips move! By all indications we were a huge hit. It was absolutely exhilarating! We were taken back to the hotel and I changed out of my sweat soaked shirt and headed out on a walkabout. It was a little misty so I was glad I had brought all my rain gear. Fuji Rock Festival is a beautifully staged event. The Naeba Ski Resort seems like the perfect venue. I walked around for a couple of hours and drank in the scene. There were wild looking stilt walkers, girls in kimonos performing traditional dance, unicyclists juggling torches, tons of great food and drink and thousands of people having the time of their lives. I walked down a forest path past huge, illuminated creatures smiling down through the branches. I spent some time in a beautiful candle garden. I decided to buy a couple of t-shirts before they sold out. Well the first 2 styles I chose we already sold out! This was the night before the festival officially began! I grabbed a couple that I liked and headed back. Breakfast was a mix of traditional Japanese and standard American. After we ate Jro, Mike and I went out to explore while we had the chance. The stages were spread out more or less in a meandering line that stretched along the base of a mountain. Each concert field seemed to be it’s own little community, complete with unique vending (it seemed like you could get different t-shirts at each one), stage design and ambiance. The Field Of Heaven stage, where we were playing, was one of the farthest out. It took close to 30 minutes to walk to it from the hotel; the last third of which was through a cedar forest along a serpentine, wooden walkway. It was quite lovely and cleverly made a one way. A separate path going in the opposite direction lay a couple hundred yards closer to the mountain on the other side of a gin clear, boulder strewn stream. I recognized these walkways from the description told to me by Keith Moseley. He told me to make sure I walked them at night as they had interesting and trippy lighting and video effects installed along the path. After spending as much time as I could (I was slated to do an interview for a Japanese cable tv show) we made our way back via the one-way return route through the forest. This route had a slightly different topography; less cedars and more damp. For a while the path led right along the stream. When we got to the back of the Green stage (the largest) we hitched a ride the rest of the way from an Aussie in a big 4 wheel ATV all painted up psychedelic. We jumped in back with a girl from New Zealand. She asked who we were and when we said “Railroad Earth” she said, “Oh, you’re that banjo playing lot from last night. You caused quite a commotion.” Banjo playing lot indeed. We collected near the lobby for the bus ride down to Field Of Heaven and our penultimate performance at the Fuji Rock Festival. When we got there there was a group on that consisted of a drummer, a percussionist and a guy that played a giant digeredoo. They were like Xavier Rudd except it took 3 people to pretty much do what he does. The crowd was worked up and really into it. I checked to see that all my gear was on site (of course it was; the Japanese are the best at managing a stage I’d ever seen), I took a walk out in the crowd to snap some pictures and shoot some video. As I got to the back of the clearing a group of what appeared to be Americans dressed as cavemen were rolling a giant boulder around the back of the venue, yelling unintelligible words and shaking spears at the amused Japanese concert goers. It was quite surreal. There was a fairly long break between us and the group before us and the crowd pretty much disappeared. I had that same disconcerting feeling I always have when this happens - and it inevitably does at these big festivals that have so much to compete for the fans attention - would the crowd return to see us?. By the time we started, the field was around a third full but it was nearly full before we were done. We had an amazing 2 hrs.. to play as a result of the last minute cancellation by Damien Rice. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing him again. I really enjoyed his set at Bonaroo. The mostly Japanese crowd (there was a smattering of non-Orientals including my friend Lacey who I met on Jam Cruise and was now working in Singapore) was into it from the first note. They all seem to dance up and down in place. It’s quite a sight to see 4,000 + people bopping up and down. While watching other shows during the day I noticed that they seemed also to like the shaking of fists and waving of hands. Let’s say they were an engaged crowd to say the least. Our host Kaz told us, “Japanese people will love 2-step.” and he was right. I couldn’t resist exhorting the crowd to wave their hands during Peace On Earth and wave they did. Eventually spontaneous square (or round as the case may be) dances broke out and we witnessed an interesting hybrid of a square dance-mosh pit! They all seemed to be having an absolute ball and their energy was completely contagious. The Field Of Heaven is a beautiful spot with the most organic vibe of all the venues at the festival. I can see why this is where the String Cheese Incident’s and the Phish’s of the world play when they are at Fuji. It was a smashing show; one I shall not soon forget. When we were done our gear was whisked off stage in a matter minutes and placed back in our staging area in perfect order. Carey ran off stage to change his shirt before he packed his cymbals. This probably took a minute or less. By the time he got back on stage, a stage hand had his cymbals broke down, placing the last one in it’s proper space while wearing white gloves so as not to smudge them! We rode back to the hotel in the bus. As we pulled out of the backstage area people waved and clapped as we went by; smiles were everywhere, including on my face! After dinner we did an interview with Edsel magazine and then Michael-san (our interpreter) and I went out to see the Cure and whoever else we could. I for sure wanted to walk back to the Field Of Heaven and see what craziness was cooked up for us along the forest path. The Cure was great but incredibly loud. We withstood the sonic onslaught for 3 or 4 songs and then decided to make our way over to the Field Of Heaven to catch Yo La Tengo. The forest walk did not disappoint. In a clearing, just as you got to the beginning of the path they had very powerful lighting effects that illuminated the whole side of a very large hill. The entire concert site was in an alpine valley of sorts with a steep hill on one side and a veritable mountain on the other. The hill was the backdrop for the lights. The effects changed and morphed; at times it looked like liquid light flowing down the hillside in silvery streamlets, then mutated into swirling colors and quickly into geometric patterns tumbling towards the valley floor. We continued on to see Yo La Tengo at the Field Of Heaven stage. I’ve never really got them and didn’t really get them this night either. In the forest on the way back there was another lighting extravaganza. They had placed various sized mirror balls in the forest that when lit transformed the woods into another dimension. Really clever and very trippy. The walk back took us through several smaller venue fields, each with it’s own vending. Michael-san spied a Thai food stand with an ancient old Thai woman sitting in the back chopping vegetables and barking orders in Thai to the other workers scurrying back and forth preparing food. He says, “This food’s got to be great with Thai momma at the helm.”, and he was so right! It hit every spot. We made our way back to the Green stage on our way back to the hotel. The Cure had finished up already and the scene was spreading over to the dance venues where the party would go all night. I’d guess that there were at least 50,000 - 90,000 people in the field while the Cure were playing. It was now nearly empty. In the USA you would be wading through a river of refuse if you were to traverse a field that minutes before was full of concert goers. To my utter amazement there was not a single piece of litter to be seen anywhere on the field! The people of Japan are truly wonderful. I would guess that having to survive on an island nation with limited space and resources has made the them so efficient, clean and respectful. Michael-san and I wandered around a little more trying to take in as much of what was left of the night. I was crazy tired and knew I soon had to get some sleep but I didn’t want this to end. Of course it had to and did when I finally said goodnight and went off to bed. We had a 9 AM call to make the 4+ hr drive back to the airport. We said goodbye to a tearful Chiaki and off we went. We passed by the ant-like line of people making their way in for the days festivities and wished I was one of them. On the way we stopped at the Japanese version of an interstate rest area to get some lunch. Here’s another thing the Japanese have perfected to a science. You can order a wide variety of great, fresh food basically out of a vending machine (the machine does not make or store your food, it simply puts your order in to the kitchen). There’s a display case that shows you your choices (there are many)... next you go to the vending machine and put in your yen and make your choice. Out comes a ticket with your number on it. Your order is now in and you go and wait behind a red line and wait for your number to appear on a screen above the counter where you pick up your food. And the food is fantastic! Several orders of magnitude better than anything you could get at a truck stop in the United States. We arrive in plenty of time for our flight back to the states. As Fuji Rock artists we are given check-in priority. We have to say goodbye to our friends Kaz and Michael-san. We don’t really want to leave. Japan has been a wonderful experience filled with the most respectful and sweetest people. Right down to our final interaction with the people of Japan. When you go through security they take you items off the the conveyer with white gloves on and hand them to you as they bow. Japan shall forever remain in my heart and mind. You can go here to see photos from the trip. You’ll have to cut and paste the address into your browser. http://www.flickr.com/photos/timcarbone/

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