Saturday morning is an important time for the festival. A good portion of the people who attend arrive either late Friday night or early Saturday morning, so it’s vital they get into the swing of things as soon as possible. On the other hand, those who were on hand for the Friday activities are likely hungover, having overdone it the night before. That’s why the festival almost always schedules the Tokyo Paradise Ska Orchestra as the lead-off act on the Green Stage. They like to think that they can raise the dead with their dance music, and while it’s corny as hell it mostly succeeds in that mission. Before that I was in the Red Marquee, where Billyrrom opened at 10:30. They were obviously charged with the same task as Tokyo Ska, and did a better job, I’d say. The group shades toward the disco side of city pop, though with a harder guitar edge, and the lead singer, a rail thin gentleman in belted snow white slacks and a colorful shirt straight out of Saturday Night Fever was a grand master of ceremonies; a better dancer than he was a singer, and he was a good singer. He said they played at the Naeba Shokudo stage last year, which didn’t make any sense to me. Given the guy’s sly moves and ability to use all the real estate available to him, I can’t imagine that tiny stage could hold him. In any case, this morning everyone danced without being told to. 

For something completely different I trucked over to the Field of Heaven to see Shugo Tokumaru. He’s played at Fuji a number of times in the past and the last time I saw him he was on the White Stage in the late afternoon and drew quite a crowd. It wasn’t yet noon when he and his band started their set, and the audience was pretty small, but his music fits the Heaven vibe better. Granted, his high voice and quirky instrumentations can get precious really fast, but his musicianship, both as a tunemaker and a guitarist, sort of justifies it. He’s also got a weirder sense of humor than most indie musicians. Some people might label The Last Dinner Party “precious,” with their funny getups and theatrical rock songs. They’re supposedly the new big thing in the UK, and their 1 pm slot on the Green Stage gave them the kind of exposure they’d need in Japan to make an impression, and as far as I could discern from the crowd, the reaction was: What’s not to like? Five talented young women who don’t take themselves half as seriously as the critics imply, making fun of feminine stereotypes and whipping up a racket as they do it. I think they made a lot of fans, but not with that Blondie cover, which was pretty awful.

Though I’d heard that ticket sales this year have been underwhelming, it’s been pretty crowded today and much more difficult to get around compared to yesterday. It took me twice as long to march the hundred or so meters from the Green Stage to the Red Marquee to see Glass Beams and the shed was already packed. Inauspiciously or not, as soon as the band took the stage a squall materialized and dumped a considerable amount of water outside, thus causing even more people to push inside. I maintained a standing position near the back exit. Glass Beams are from Australia and play a kind of Indian-flavored psychedelia. They supposedly hide their identities behind masks but I couldn’t see them from where I was standing, mainly because the stage was dark. Why they didn’t play Field of Heaven, like Khruangbin, whom they sonically resemble, I don’t know. It was groove-heavy and intense, and I can imagine getting deeply into it with a pair of headphones, but I found it mostly repetitious and all I could think about was having an anxiety attack as the shed filled up with more and more people. Thirty minutes in I slowly, painfully made my way to the exit. It was a relief to get out of there.