Hachioji Grand Festival

I missed the grand festival in Tokyo’s western city of Hahicoji that took place last weekend. It is one of my favorite festivals so I am a little miffed that I could not go. Instead I dug around among the photos I took of last year’s festival and found these, of the giant dashi right during the magic blue hour! The red light of the lanterns to the wooden browns of the costumes and the dashi look great contrasted with the rich blue of that time of the early evening. Of course seeing the real thing is best photos will have to do in this for this blog!

This Weekend – Hachioji Matsuri

If you are in Tokyo over the weekend and want to see or do something special there is nothing I would recommend more than the famous Hachioji Matsuri, one of the biggest festival in Western Tokyo. It is a little bit of a train ride from central Tokyo but less than an hour from most points in the city I think. The festival is scattered all over central Hachioji, but the main action is on the main road near the station, where the giant Dashi are being pulled back and forth throughout the day and the evening. Apart from the there are also plenty of Hayashi (traditional live festival music), omikoshi, dances, rituals, geisha, etc. This festival is easily one of the most “complete” of the big summer festivals in Tokyo! I took these in the scorching hot festival last year but this year looks to be even hotter!

The Hammered Live at Design Festa 40

One of the great things about the twice annual Design Festa are the many live acts you get to see for the ridiculously low entrance fee. One of my favorites from this winter’s 40th Design Festa was The Hammered, a very loud, very fast metal band, easily comparable to the best of what European metal bands has to offer. Watching metal in full daylight can challenging, even more so photographing it, but band photography is always fun regardless of the circumstances. If you are into metal, please check these guys out!

Bebop – Japanese Punk

Design Festa is the most famous amateur design and arts festival here in Japan. It is a massive two day event that takes place twice a year attracting hundreds of thousands of artists and visitors. The majority of exhibitors are artists and designers but there are three stages on site that continually hosts live events, bands and performers. At the 40th Design Festa that took place last weekend I saw a very good punk band, Bebop, perform at the outdoor main stage. Punk has never been a very big genre anywhere in the world and especially not here in Japan, but the local bands are top class. This is quite different from the punk bands I grew up with! You can check out their homepage here, but they sound best live, together with their dedicated and energetic fans of all ages!

It was good to do a bit of live music photography again. Despite the fans rampaging in front of the stage I could sneak in a few close ups of the band. The slight spraying of beer I received was totally in the spirit of the show and quite fun!