Sonarsound Tokyo

This weekend I went down to Tokyo to catch up with some friends and to go to Sonarsound festival. I spent the whole of Saturday in Yokohama with Natsuko, her friend Yosshi, my Miyagi friend Ewan (who happened to be going to Yokohama the same day as me) and his friend Naoko. We went for lunch and wandered around the town all afternoon. It's a beautiful place, and the weather was amazing. I'm pretty sure it never rains in Yokohama. We stumbled across the 'Yokohama Oktoberfest' and had a beer there, and also found an international food festival, where loads of different countries had stalls selling their national dishes. I had a Nepalese curry and a Peruvian burito. Then I headed into Tokyo to meet my friend Sakiko and find the festival.

So, the artists. First up was Softpad. Oh my jesus bloody god hell buggeration, Japanese VJs are incredible!! I had to remember to close my mouth because it kept hanging open while I was watching. They made music as well, which wasn't bad and sounded quite like Autechre, but it was really just a backdrop to their epic visuals. If you ever get a chance to see these guys live, do it!

Optrum. This guy was playing a freakin' light bulb. Enough said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_v9RqLCmqI

DJ Baku. The most hectic thing I saw all night. Played mostly ridiculous drum n bass, jungle and breakcore. Made sure that even if there was a slight pause or breakdown on one of his decks, the other one would be going at full pelt to make up for it. If it still wasn't hectic enough, he also had a KaossPad and all kinds of other gadgetry going on, to ensure an absolutely relentless set.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5YH4uElJddE

Tucker. DJ/pianist/guitarist/bassist/drummer/hardcore punk screamer extraordinaire. 'Energetic' doesn't begin to describe this guy. He was constantly running around the stage, trying to play all his instruments at once, doing handstands on his piano (while still playing a pretty decent tune), stage diving, etc. Musical mayhem.

Afra & Incredible Beatbox Band. 3 guys, who were really, really good at beatboxing. Not much else to say about them, but they were amazing.

De La Soul. Lived up to all expectations. Legends.

DJ Kentaro. Maybe the best act all night. Was scratching the visuals as well as DJing like a motherbitch. His set was so complex that he had to have another guy on stage with a whole bunch of laptops and stuff, who I assume was feeding samples to Kentaro's various exciting gadgets. Just watch him in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgD9dPeVXG8

After that, there were a couple more DJs, but they paled in comparison to Kentaro. Also, I was incredibly tired by that point. I'd come to Tokyo by night bus, so I'd snatched about 3 hours of sleep, and I had got off the bus at 6am. By the time I got to bed, it was nearly 7am.

Good times.