Probably the closest any Japanese music festival comes to evoking the spirit of Glastonbury. Fuji Rock has got it all: bucolic setting, diverse line-up, unpredictable weather and a truly wallet-singeing ticket price (3-day passes fall just shy of 40,000 yen a pop).

The "Fuji" bit is something of a misnomer, mind you. Japan's iconic mountain was actually visible from the site of the inaugural event in 1997 - but then, that event was destroyed halfway through by a typhoon, leading the organisers to choose an alternative location. It's now held at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata Prefecture - a pretty much ideal setting, albeit one that's blighted by random, torrential downpours.

Compared to most western festivals, Fuji is an almost ludicrously civilised affair. The campsite comes complete with showers and a free hot spring bath, everyone is handed litter bags on the way into the arena so they can pick up after themselves, and - get this - the queue for the merchandise shops are about 2 hours longer than the ones for the beer tents. The latter seldom having any queue whatsoever, natch.

If you go, be sure to check out the smaller Field of Heaven and Orange Court stages, take a walk along the forest boardwalk at night (trippy visuals galore), and pay a visit to the Palace of Wonder area in the wee hours of the morning - it's where all the meeja people hang out, along with a few bona fide celebrities.

Take the bullet train (shinkansen) from Tokyo to JR Echigo Yuzawa station. A free shuttle bus service runs to the festival site from there.
If you're travelling from the Kansai area or Hokkaido, go to www.smash-uk.com/frf06/visitor_guide.html for details of some rather more esoteric transport options.

www.fujirockfestival.com

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