Summer Sonic '08

I had such a great weekend, but I'm a little out of it from running around so much :-P Just a little preface... ;) :-P

Friday
So the highlight of my meetings in Kobe on Friday was definitely when we were reviewing the schedule at our orientation-planning meeting and went over who would be doing what during the first shift next week.

I look at the sheet. Nate's at the desk. Fine. Chris is helping guide people to rooms. Awesome. Daniel is also a guide. Cool. And Brenda... is...working the corner?

That gave me a laugh (ok, everyone a laugh) for a while but I don't think the Board of Education guys knew why we were laughing so hard about the fact that they assigned to one girl to work the corner (association is idiomatic, I guess).

Anyways, after the meeting, I headed back to the Amagasaki-area with my friend Chris and we went to an izakaya to meet up with Dave and Emi (and they had hangaku - halfprice- drinks...score) for some food before hitting up the local watering hole. It was fun to just hang out and watch the olympics opening ceremony, but I don't know who decided it would be a good idea to use chinese characters instead of English to decide what order countries walked out in. Confusing!

Friday ended pretty late and I definiately drank too much (maybe those hangaku drinks weren't the best, afterall?), but it was good.

Saturday & Sunday
On Saturday, we got up a bit later than planned, but still made it to Maijima Island in Osaka - near Universal Studios - for the Summer Sonic music festival just as Vampire Weekend was finishing their set. I went over with Dave, Zak, Sagar and Tu, but a few other people were at the festival so we spent the two days just walking around to the shows we wanted to see. The heat was intense and the dusty grounds in front of the main stage left your feet black, but two of the six stages were inside with air-conditioning and there were water-spraying stations and free towels all over so it wasn't too bad. And the music was brilliant.
I would have to say Coldplay was my favorite band of the weekend. I know there is a lot of hype around them and they're really popular right now, but the performance was excellent and Chris Martin seemed really happy to be there (which was nice to see compared to other bands - although I agree with my friend that he does seem to want to be Bono so badly he can taste it...haha). I was a little worried that of the big most bands wouldn't play their big hits since Japan is off the main western-market tour zones (and gives them a chance to try new stuff that might not work in America), but pretty much everyone I saw - including Coldplay - included everything I wanted to hear in their set.
The concerts went from about noon to 9pm every day and it really cooled off in the evenings because we were so close to the water, which was nice. There was a lot of lightening on the first night, but luckily, we didn't get rained on (which is good because we stood outside in the taxi line forever...). Also, in the middle of the Coldplay show (which was at the main stage, outside, on Sat night), the band surprised the audience by setting up an impromptu stage really close to where we were standing in the middle of the crowd so we were actually really close to Chris Martin for a while (like, close enough to see his sweat), it was sort of cool to hear "Lovers in Japan" (off the new album) live in Japan, and I really loved how the show ended with a fireworks finale. It was also kind of cool to see Devo live, although we missed Whip It! and it felt a little bit like watching your dad change when the band tore off their paper suits (looked like Ghostbusters uniforms) to reveal little black shorts, knee-high socks, knee pads & t-shirts. Oh, well, this had to have been a big show for them, so at least they made it fun.

The second day was a lot more crowded than the first, with lines for some of the shows. Death Cab for Cutie (which was inside and ended with Transatlanticism - one of my fave songs - amazing!) and the Verve (who knew they were still around... and so good?) were my top choices for the second day, but the lineup on the first day was a bit juicier. The big acts at the end of the night on Sunday were Sex Pistols (who showed up 30 minutes late and then sounded like crap...jerks) and Prodigy, but I can see how they saved the better lineup for Tokyo on Sunday. Dave pointed out that most people have to work on Saturday, so if they go to one day, it's going to be Sunday... and Tokyo is the bigger city. Makes sense and Sunday was definitely busier in Osaka, too... but it would have been nice to see Coldplay last.

Monday
I ended up staying in Amagasaki until Monday, along with a big group of other concert-goers who joined the slumber party, and just left early for work but I'm really glad I made it to the concerts this year. Also saw a bit more of the Olympics on Saturday night (Japan won a bronze and gold in judo), but realized pretty early on that I was the only American present so kept the American cheers to a minimum (sort of). Definitely dejavu to watching the summer Olympics at school in Norway when I was the only one cheering for the States (which some people love to hate or are annoyed by because our team is always so massive... and stupid Joe refused to cheer for), but it's kind of fun watching then outside of the country because the coverage is so different. It seemed funny that they focus only on showing the Japanese team here, but they did showcase the swimming events when we got the first gold (and world record!).

Anyways, off to prefectural orientation tomorrow (gotta be on the corner bright and early ;) ) but my computer is being picked up today (totally dead now) so I'll probably be out of the loop for a bit. I'll be more connected as of a week from Wednesday.... so more then!