Think rock festivals in Japan and most picture Fuji Rock, Asia's biggest live music extravaganza, held in the green fields of Naeba in Niigata prefecture at the end of every July. These days, however, its younger sibling, the Summer Sonic Festival, has bragging rights as the largest event in Asia.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary year, Summer Sonic will this year play host to an expected 200,000 revellers, more than the 160,000 or so gathered at the ski resort to the north for Fuji. For the past four years Summer Sonic has eclipsed its rival in terms of attendances, chiefly because it's an urban event held simultaneously in Japan's two biggest cities, Tokyo and Osaka.
Although Fuji's traditional rock festival format appeals to many concert-goers because it's based on the British Glastonbury model, Summer Sonic uses the formula successfully employed by the Big Day Out in Australia, where bands switch cities for different days of the festival. Bands play Osaka one day and Tokyo the next, or vice versa. This year Summer Sonic will be held from August 7 to 9, two weeks after Fuji, which has been going since 1997.
It's not all about ease of access, however. Summer Sonic's lineups have in some years blown away its competitor's. This year it pits headliners My Chemical Romance (below), Linkin Park and Beyonce (below left) against Fuji's Oasis, Franz Ferdinand and Weezer. Linkin Park, the American nu-metal outfit, last headlined the festival in 2006.
But there are downsides to Summer Sonic. While Fuji music fans can camp and party all night in the on-site rave tents, Summer Sonic is held in the concrete jungle, including the Marine baseball stadium and Makuhari Messe in Tokyo's Chiba district, and at the Maishiam site in Osaka, 400km west of the capital.
Fans in Tokyo complain of a 1km schlep between venues in the summer heat that makes it hard to see all the bands. Japan Times music critic Simon Bartz says the drawbacks are manifold: 'Cramped facilities, tetchy security guards and long marches through concrete jungles between stages.'