I love to watch basketball and I could never understand why college basketball is so popular in the U.S. Then one day I asked a hardcore college basketball fan the reason and he went on to give a very good answer. Due to the fact that America has the most respected basketball league in the world, the NBA, there are an exceptionally large number of great players in that country and the vast majority will never make it to that level but end up disappearing into obscurity once they graduate from college. So the players in the college league play with the utmost of passion and enthusiasm simply because it may be the only chance they will get to play in front of a large crowd. Now if this reasoning can be extended to Fuji Rock, one can easily understand why some of the best acts you see are lesser known Japanese bands who play on the smaller stages. A good example of this is Indus & Rocks a psychedelic pop / post rock band who have been active on festival scene since first playing at an outdoor festival in Shizuaka prefecture in 2009. Their stretched out jam-band style tunes went down a treat at the hippie themed Gypsy Avalon and just looking at these great pictures you can see that they played as if they were playing their last ever gig. To give you an idea of what you missed out on if you didn’t catch them, take a look at this visually stimulating clip they did for their song “ikusen.”