SUMMER SONIC – OSAKA 2013

Kojacon was in SUMMER SONIC 2013 in Osaka, check out how incredible and hot the event was!

SUMMER SONIC is a festival that happen in Japan every year, during summer. Maybe if the festival was happened during winter, it will be called WINTER SONIC (lol) Well…

Summer in Japan is extremely hot during August and this festival make you feel how hot this country can be, and how hot the bands are! SUMMER SONIC is a two days festival and held in Osaka and Tokyo, both of them have a lot of same bands. The main bands who play in Tokyo on Saturday, will play in Osaka on Sunday. So you can choose the closest festival from your house or hotel. Tokyo is much bigger and have so many choices during day, so maybe it will be more difficult to choose and you will get frustrated because you can’t watch all bands you want.

Big bands were in this festival, not only Japanese, but from all around the world. I went to Osaka one since it’s closer to my city. On Sunday you can watched PERFUME, BABY METAL, maximum the hormone, the gazettE, crossfaith and other Japanese bands, but they also had CN.BLUE and FT.Island. How, so many good choices, but you still have to deal with PET SHOP BOYS, METALLICA, FALL OUT BOYS, Bullet for my valentine and Linkin Park as main bands during a very hot day.

Also during all night, between Saturday and Sunday, you can go to SUMMER SONIC and be part of the MIDNIGHT SONIC, that had a very good Japanese punk electronic band called FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and a lot of DJ’s.

Uow, difficult to choose isn’t it?

Arriving in Sakurajima, the closest station to the SUMMER SONIC area, you need to take a bus and pay only 800 yen for round trip. Festival area was in the middle of the sea, so you need to cross a bridge. You can do it by foot or your own car, but that day was so hot and parking area was all full, so I recommend you to take the bus. Very organized lines and you don’t need to wait too long under the sun because they have so many buses. You just need to wait about 5 minutes or less for next one.

First stage you see when you arrived was OCEAN STAGE, the main one, if you walk outside that area you can find MOUNTAIN STAGE very far away, the dance area near there and if you walk a little more you will find FLOWER STAGE behind SONIC STAGE. Everything is in the same area and you can walk freely around there all you have to do is show your SUMMER SONIC wristband!

Crossfaith is a Japanese punk rock band who was the opening band on the OCEAN STAGE, we couldn’t watch their live show because we were trying to buy some water, since it was 11:30 AM and was very, very hot, and almost of the time when the sun is getting stronger. We came back around 12:20 PM after we checked all the places in festival area and we can catched the last performance from VOLBEAT, very exciting punk rock band. A lot of punk circles and most of audience were moshing. And after these crazy guys performed, PERFUME was next. PERFUME is Japanese pop band, very famous one. You can see a lot of fans were dancing and singing along together. It was very amusing, because you can find old people, punk fans, young girls, middle aged guys in the audience. PERFUME was dancing and singing on stage and everyone likes it.

PERFUME SET LIST :

01. Spending all my time
02. Magic of Love
03. Voice
04. Spring of Life
05. だいじょばない (Daijyobanai)
06. チョコレイト・ディスコ (Chocolate Disco)
07. MY COLOR

Well after all this crazy party, a very typical habit happened during stage change. In every events, the fans change place with other fans, so after PERFUME finished their performances their fans moved to the back and then MAXIMUM THE HORMONE fans went to the front. A lot of big guys, girls, and all were anxious for the next band but the sun was so high since it was 1.00 PM, then everybody started to faint. We saw one or two girls fainted, but as soon as they fainted, a staff came to help and took the person to the first aid area. They had around five or more first aid areas to help everyone who need it. They also had some shower rooms for you take a rapid bath to get more fresh and the firefighters rubber were spray away water to people in the front row on OCEAN STAGE. Therefore, everyone was fine, just some people who really can’t hold the summer heat will faint, so please be careful and know your limits!

When MAXIMUM THE HORMONE came to the stage, everyone was screaming, they are a powerful band where the leader and also the drummer is a girl! She is very incredible, the band took their positions and started, so every single dance during PERFUME has changed to typical punk circles. Typical punk circle is a huge circle where the audience just mosh. Very punk live show scenario. Punk dance and circles, some friends doing it alone, people at back having their own fun and PERFUME fans, still there, trying to stay safe. Nobody was hurt, but you can see a lot of people getting out of the front row because it was really insane.

You can imagine, whole place with only punk rock fans. SUMMER SONIC Osaka was sold out too, so everything was packed except the Ocean Stage because not all people stayed there.

Then first song finished and they came more powerful than before with second song and all others songs were the same, even during the talk part, the drummer asked if everyone was fine. She said it is okay to sweat because you need to maximum your hormone. Incredible jokes! She also try to sing a PERFUME song, everyone sing along and laugh together. It was very nice, but the vocal screaming for next song makes you remember that MAXIMUM THE HORMONE is crazy.

You can see water bottles were flying, huge dust were everywhere because there was sand on the floor, like in FREEDOM NAGOYA.

MAXIMUM THE HORMONE was good, very good one, it is our first time watching a band like this in a huge event. It was very incredible and makes you want to go to their tour lives. MAXIMUM THE HORMONE is a amazing band on stage, they wore very simple clothes and have simple stage yet they give us an amazing performance that worth to watch. The bassist is incredible with his moves and makes you remember with the bassist from Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their sound is same as in CD, no difference, and this is incredible to notice since they have a lot of screams in their song and nice sound by the drummer. Ah! When you watch punk band, prepare yourself to be hit by some crazy punk dude during performance.

MAXIMUM THE HORMONE SET LIST:

01. 恋のメガラバ (Koi no Mega Lover)
02. maximum the hormone
03. 便所サンダルダンス (Benjo Sandals Dance)
04. Mr.ブギータンブリンマン (Mr. Boogie Tamborine Man)
05. ビキニ・スポーツ・ポンチン (Bikini Sport Ponchin)
06. シミ (Tsumi)
07. 恋のスペルマ (Koi no Supreme)

Taking your way to the FLOWER STAGE you can see a lot of people sleeping under the shadows or just sit to run away from the hot sun, it was around 4.00 PM when the GazettE started. As always all fans started to clap their hands and waiting for the intro till the members came to the stage one by one. Once they came, they just scream their names, so choose your favorite member, wait for him to come to the stage and scream! This is a visual kei show. The stage was small so they couldn’t walk so much and couldn’t bring all they usual equipments, but it doesn’t make the band less powerful. Starting so strong that fans just scream when someone throw a water bottle to the air and make some fresh water try to take all that hot feeling goes out, but it’s impossible when you are in a the GazettE live show.

The vocalist is incredible with his performance, going to one side and other, teasing the fans and screaming with them while he sings, powerful vocal with an amazing instruments make all the people ignore the hot day and give their best to do furitsuke and headbang! A small stop to talk and the vocalist forget to say who they are, so he say sorry and announced, “We are the GazettE.” People just clap their hands and make some noise. If you look around the stage you can see the bass guitarist fanning himself with his hand. They wore their costume for their new single, FADELESS. You can imagine how hot they were. You can also notice that they were the only band in that stage who put fans near them because the visual make everything more and more hot, the vocalist was with his face all blush and red. Talk finished and another song came to make fans goes insane, you can see some fans from other fandoms in front row and in the middle of the GazettE fans were trying to get safe during headbangs. When a girl started to faint, two girls hold her and people help her. Everyone still care about the others, even if you are or not a the GazettE fan.

About the performance, it’s impossible to say it was bad just because it was in a small stage in such a big event. The band came and show to everyone there who they are, what is the GazettE’s music and it’s incredible you can see this band can do a really amazing live show even in a small stage. Nothing couldn’t stop them when they want to show us their music and how powerful they can be.

the GazettE SET LIST :

[XI]
01.VORTEX
02.LEECH
03.VENOMOUS SPIDER’S WEB
04.DERANGEMENT
05.ATTITUDE
06.REQUIRED MALFUNCTION
07.Filth in the beauty

For a small stage and big event the GazettE gave us a very powerful and incredible performance, every single the GazettE were all in sweat. It’s impossible if you don’t want to go to their next tour in November after you see their live performance. A really hot day, with amazing bands. Some problems occured but since Japan is really an organized place, nobody get hurt. Everyone was fine and in the end of the day you can enjoy a nice night view while listening to METALLICA or watch the sunset while listening to Linkin Park. You can bring your chair and stay sit all day, nobody cares, you can enjoy SUMMER SONIC wherever you want. Just remember, bring extra clothes, A LOT of water and a sun lotion is good too, or you will get tan. It’s like in the beach, but with an amazing music playing around.

Want photos from SUMMER SONIC? Just click here and check they oficial photos!