Summer Music Festivals Guide

Rising Sun Rock Festival 2011: the one that's far, far away

Posted: Fri Jul 08 2011

You'd be surprised how many Tokyoites make the pilgrimage to Hokkaido for this two-day event, where the main stage keeps going until dawn on the second night. Like Rock in Japan, the lineup at Rising Sun consists purely of domestic acts, although they spread their net wider, and with less regard for commercial considerations.

The lineup

A-bra:z, Androp, Back Number, The Band Apart, B.B. Queens, Bigmama, Caravan, The Cro-Magnons, Dachambo, Dohatsuten, Dustbox, Fried Pride, Group_inou, Hanaregumi, Tomoyasu Hotei, Junji Inagawa, Ken Ishii, Takkyu Ishino, Takaaki Itoh, Kishidan, Kodomo Band, DJ Krush, Little Creatures, The Mods, Mongol 800, Mowmow Lulu Gyaban, Nisennenmondai, Shin Nishimura, Nothing's Carved in Stone, Oh Sunshine, Okamoto's, One OK Rock, Pia-no-Jac, The Pillows, Polysics, Quruli, Kazuyoshi Saito, Sakanaction, Sannin no Samurai (Char, Tamio Okuda, Masayoshi Yamazaki), Scoobie Do, Sherbets, Shinsei Kamattechan, Keiichi Sokabe, Special Others, Straightener, The Telephones, 10-Feet, 3G (Shuichi Murakami, Reichi Nakaido, Ken Yoshida), Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra with Hiromi Uehara, Tsuru, Your Song is Good, Ziyoou-Vachi...

The verdict

There's no shortage of curveballs in amongst the au courant artists at this year's Rising Sun, be it the throwbacks (B.B. Queens, anyone?), weirdos (Shutoku Mukai and Nanao Tavito) or downright random inclusions such as horror author Junji Inagawa. If the Japanese-only music festivals are starting to seem a bit samey, this is your antidote – although it's honestly not as tantalizing a lineup as we've seen in previous years.

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