RIZE

Rockers Raize the Roof

All hail the gods of rock’n roll for giving us Rize. For a Saturday lunchtime with little sleep the night before, what Fuji Rock needed was a band to come on stage and kick some fucking ass, and that was just what Rize did at the White Stage.

Rize have been going for 19 years, but this was their first show at Fuji Rock and they made sure they made it worth the wait. With their beginnings back in the mid 1990s, Rize are still a band very much of their time; part of that rock history that brought bands like Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Rage Against the Machine stadium-busting popularity. What comes across most in their shows most predominately is their intensity, delivered by a thundering tribal backing from drummer Nobuaki. Frontman Jesse sings and raps with a strut and confidence that is pure rock n roll, while slaptastic KenKen cuts through the chaos with some nutty basslines, all the while cutting dramatic figure is his billowing trousers and long flowing locks of hair. With a very recognisable style, the band brought with them a variety of songs, from catchy and epic-sounding stadium numbers, to the deliciously anarchic “Lovehate”, through rap, to crunchy, dirty heavy metal.

Finishing off the set in a memorable manner, Jesse pulled a member of the crowd up on stage to sing for the final song. Young Daichi was hauled on stage and handed a microphone while Jesse ran off to rock out at the side of the stage and then throw himself into the crowd for a awkward wrangle between him, the crowd, and the security guards. Meanwhile, Daichi stayed up on stage and rocked out hard and as the song came to an end was pretty much the only member of the band left standing and grinning wildly, egging the audience on to applause even harder as the exhausted bunch hauled themselves from their individual sweaty piles on the floor and stumbled off to celebrate one of the best shows of the festival.