10-FEET

Shoe waving, baby throwing madness

One of the best things about festivals like Fuji Rock, is seeing bands connect with their fansーboth old and new. Some bands do better than others, some are unlucky with time slots and yet others only seem to be interested in doing their show and getting on with it.

10-Feet, a 3-piece punk band from Kyoto that has been going on for 18 years, is none of the above. They, like their punk cousins Kemuri, as absolute masters of the craftーthey have found the perfect balance of interacting with the audience, horsing around, and playing some damned fine music.

People who saw 10-Feet were playing, or came by the Green Stage late (it was 11:30am after all, they may have overslept!) didn’t walk or jog to get close to the stage, they ran at full speed down the grassy hill to get closer as fast as they could. One gentleman jogged back and forth waving a Japan flag, then created his own circle pit around his camping chair, coupled with two random guys who decided to join him on the fly. Another guy jumped so high that he ended up toppling over and rolling around on the ground for a bit from excitement. The crowd was so enthusiastic, they never needed to be prompted to clap, cheer, fist pump or anything else. The only time vocalist Takuma asked them to do anything, was for slow song “River”. He said that “Normally I’d ask you to take out your lighters and your cellphones now, but since it’s the middle of the day, I won’t. Instead, can you hold up a shoe? And if you’re at the back, pick up your chair and wave that around.” And people did exactly that. Suddenly shows and chairs were being waved around, and in the finale of the song, a few of the shoes were thrown up into the air; and not just shoes, a baby as well. Don’t worry, the baby was caught by his/her dad without incident. I’m not sure I can say the same for the shoes.

What I suppose I want to say is that there’s more than meets the eye with this rap-funk punk loving threesome, and the passion that they instill in people.

Part of it may be because of their easygoing, familiar stage presence. Naoki (bass) complained to Takuma (vo, gt) that he was “moving in on his bit”ーthe opening of 2% had been bass only for the recorded version. Takuma was apparently hijacking Naoki’s chance to shine on the biggest stage at Fuji Rock. It was all in good fun though, and Kouchi ended up joining them for the song opening on his drums, though they all agreed that by doing that it sounded a bit “uncool”.

As for their music, as you may have guessed, pretty much every song had crowd surfing, fist pumping, circle pit starting fans reveling away. There were some songs though, that really go the crowd even more wild: “Super Stomper”, “River”, which caused Takuma to ask the audience to be nice to the security guards and calm down a little, “Sono Mukou e”, a song that pulls at the heart strings, and the last two songs: Goes On, super speedy punk, and after some discussion their final song, “Stay Gold”.

Setlist:

Vibes by Vibes
Stone Cold Break
Focus
Super Stomper
Kaze
Shoes
2%
River
1 sec
Shinkirou
Sono Mukou e
Goes On

Bonus song, “because we have a few minutes left, apparently”
Stay Gold