As you enter into Fuji Rock’s grounds, the mountains rear up over you. Not threateningly but impassively benevolent, like nature itself has taken the festival into its care. No matter where you walk in Fuji Rock, you are surrounded by trees, grass and bushes. To get between stages you have to pass along roads and boardwalks, surrounded and overarched by forest. The setting is unrelentingly green, even at the biggest stage, the (appropriately named) Green Stage. Even though it has a capacity of 15 000, it and its crowd is made to look small by the mountain and forest it nestles among.

It’s a rare atmosphere for a festival, one of such beauty and reflectiveness. It’s reflected in the crowd’s faces, who are laughing or smiling and simply drinking in the scenes and the music. It’s just as good to see the people also respecting the environment. Let me tell you, if this was Australia, we’d be lucky not to be knee-deep in rubbish by now, let alone have people queueing to divide their rubbish into combustible, non-combustible and recyclable.