1 – Ei Wada Electronicos Fantasticos
When I said these are not in any particular order, I lied. Because number one was Ei Wanda’s Saturday Night Naeba Shokudo performance. Feeling like a festival put on by and performed for broken appliances, it was something that needed to be seen to be believed. Pure weirdo magic.

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2 – Dinosaur Jr
This was the show I was looking forward to the most, and it did not disappoint. I have been a fan of Dinosaur Jr since I was a teenager, and to see them and have them still be this good was a total dream come true. J Mascis Rules.

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3 – Terry Riley with Sara Miyamoto – Everything and Beyond
It was super cool to see a legend like Terry Riley perform in the flesh, and even cooler to see him perform with my friend Sara Miyamoto. My only request would have been for a little more cloud cover because boy was it hot! But that didn’t stop it from being an amazingly good time.

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4 – Otoboke Beaver
I love this band. I have been a fan since they just started over a decade ago, and they rule every time. I am happy to see them get the attention they deserve, and I was super pumped to find out that they were the secret pre-festival artist on Thursday night. Sex, shibazuke and rock n’ roll!

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5 – The Weather
It didn’t really rain! Unprecedented! It was hot, but not too hot, perhaps a little too sunny, but at no point was I suffering with wet socks and a wet phone all huddled into my rain gear. Thank you Naeba!

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Hopes for Next Year
Bring back the Oasis bakery! Having a croissant or some kind of pastry in the morning helps keep me sane, and Fuji Rock this year had a shortage of bread keeping me happy. Runner up is bring back the artist name pun cocktails now that alcohol is back. A Jack White Russian? Tom Michelada? Mog-wine cooler? Lemon Dino-sour Jr? The possibilities are endless!

Diving straight into the quirky “Nadja”, rapper Mori officially entered goofy party-boy mode while DJ/producer Chomo pulled double duty as an MC. The two flailed around the stage with no abandon and wasted no downtime, amping up the crowd between songs, egging everyone on to party harder. They really busted it wide open when they brought on pal Nagan Server for the throbbing 90’s house influenced “A Little Question”, all three of them playing off each other, trading complex verses.

They also proved they were not just a loony hip-hop duo with mostly instrumental deep club tracks like “Bomboclap”, which featured rave-worthy 808s, electronic handclaps and a stuttering vocal loop provided by Mori. After shouting, “ANYBODY OUT THERE WHO CAN KEEP ON DANCING? ARE YOU SURE?!”, a funky hip-house backing beat that sounded like it came off a 2 UNLIMITED album burst forth and the pair unleashed “NO WAY”, perhaps their catchiest track.

Challenging the crowd to keep up with their levels of excitement, Mori clutched a beer while effortlessly rapping double-time and Chomo showcased awkwardly charming dance moves. You know its a real party when the guys up on stage are the ones having the most fun under the whole tent.

Meirin first got into music in junior high school when she met a boy who liked punk. I feel like a looooot of us can relate to this. Through that young love, she started going to punk lives, and buying various CDs and her love for music grew from then on.

Candid and completely unapologetic, ZOMBIE-CHANG stated in an interview with JAPAN Forward just days before the show that she can “blow away the tent” with her music at Fuji Rock 2022.

Situated at Red Marquee at near 3 in the morning, ZOMBIE-CHANG came on with so much energy that she helped me stay up and awake. Red Marquee was bumping, and the energy was most definitely there.

One of the most memorable songs from her set last night for me was her new song “Stress”. Earlier this year, Meirin released her 9-track album ‘STRESS De STRESS’. She mentioned in an interview that while she was working on the album, she was in a hard techno phase, which shines through in some of the songs, like STRESS for example. While she sang the song to a very boozed-up crowd, in the background screen in huge block letters read the word ‘STRESS’ over and over again. This had a major effect on the whole performance of that song. She also got on the mic and started talking to the crowd asking people ‘ARE YOU STRESSED’, ‘WE ALL GET STRESSED’, etc. People were loving her interactions, especially because she was yelling over an auto-tuned mic.

Another song of the album ‘STRESS De STRESS’ that she performed was ‘Ping Pong’, to which she started throwing signed ping pong balls in the crowd. I’m sure we’ll be seeing those on Mercari very soon.

Meirin once said in an interview that she goes to clubs alone because she doesn’t want to be seen dancing and prefers to dance with strangers. And why I bring this up is because, I think there were quite a lot of people in the crowd of her set alone, and having the time of her life.

More “culture curator” than DJ (his own words), Night Tempo has seemingly become a Fuji Rock mainstay, performing multiple times each visit. This is no doubt due to his ability to connect to older generations who recognize the songs he reworks, as well as a younger audience who are drawn to the catchy danceability of his work.

After gaining some momentum with his “Ladies in the City” live set on Friday, he was ready to really put all he had into his set on Saturday. It really was the perfect timing and perfect location; He hooked in those with tired legs ready to trudge back to their tent but who were suddenly drawn in to the Red Marquee tent, hypnotized by the retro bubblegum melodies and body-moving rhythms.

Even 20 minutes into the set, around the time he unleashed RA MU’s “Aoyama Killer Monogatari”, droves of people were still pouring in the back of the tent, already jamming along.

The “culture curator” title that Night Tempo has coined for himself really is spot on. His ability to clip all the catchiest parts of these 70s and 80s Japanese hits and sprinkle even more magical groove dust on top is really quite impressive. Exceeding super-nerd status in his field, he has his finger directly on the pulse of retro Japanese music and understands how to make them instantly accessible to a new generation.

His set reached back far enough to get deep cuts, but switched gears quickly enough to keep even those with short attention spans interested. He quickly bounced through well known sing-a-long’s like Akemi Ishii’s “CHA CHA CHA” and of course the rework that made him famous, Takeuchi Mariya’s “Plastic Love”.

With all the young kids grooving at the front of the stage at 1:00am, you wouldn’t be surprised to find their moms and dads all at the back, jamming just as hard.

It all started when a senior DJ invited Nari (one of the members of CYK) to a party with Nachtbraker, a DJ/producer from Amsterdam. Basically, Naoki Takebayashi, who was attended the same university as Nari, met Kotsu and DJ No Guarantee at a cafe in Shibuya.

When they first came together, they immediately recognized their mutual love for dance music. In 2017, CYK performed at Circus in Shibuya, Tokyo and a record breaking 430 people attended, breaking Circus Tokyo’s record for the largest attendance in one night. Apparently, there was a 30-minute queue outside the club.

Within CYK, everyone is a DJ. While each member has their own tastes and history with music, they all contribute to the DJ set.

Performing at Rainbow Disco Club earlier this year, CYK took Red Marquee’s stage right after ZOMBIE-CHANG, a tough act to follow. However, they did their part and as the sun was slowly rising in Naeba, Red Marquee was pumping with everyone dancing and living in the moment.