How did the Japanese media miss this story?

Weeks before the most crucial election since the war, more than 100,000 Japanese youths gathered for the most important events on their calendars: Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata Prefecture from July 24 to 26 and Summer Sonic in Makuhari, Chiba, Aug. 7-9. Yet during these festivals, I never saw a single Japanese journalist looking to interview young Japanese to find out what they think.

In the U.K., U.S. or Canada, local press will often regard rock festivals such as Glastonbury, Woodstock, and Lollapalooza as social bellwether and even as key turning points in cultural history. But in Japan, NHK and the rest of the media, who will happily hand over valuable air time to an apple festival in Aomori, ignore Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic as if they’re happening in a foreign country.

Which is a shame, because Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic are among the best music festivals in the world, and a proud display of Japan’s sophisticated, cooperative and curious young generation.

Though beset by record unemployment and five decades of one-party rule, it’s amazing to see Japanese youth smiling as they line up for toilets, sleep in tents and on floors, and pay ¥40,000 for three-day passes.

Anybody who thinks Japanese kids are wussies should have seen them braving rain and lightning during Nine Inch Nails and Razorlight at the seaside Summer Sonic, or standing for long periods in cold mud and torrential rain to witness inspired sets by Patti Smith, Lilly Allen and Oasis at the Naeba ski resort during Fuji Rock. Nobody rioted when Fuji Rock organizers had to cancel an all-night rave – featuring Ken Ishii, Asano Tadanobu and Towa Tei – due to a swollen river and a damaged bridge.

Forget about Prime Minister Taro Aso and other candidates. Given the chance, many Japanese youths would vote for Noel Gallagher of Oasis or Mike Shinoda, the third-generation Japanese-American mastermind of Linkin Park, who played before 50,000 fans at Chiba Marine Stadium. Japanese who are often too shy to speak English at school or work were singing along word-for-word to Oasis anthems such as “Rock ’n’ Roll Star” and “Roll With It,” as well as Linkin Park choruses like “Crawling in my skin, these wounds they will not heal.”

Why are they the most popular bands in Asia? Although Oasis are from Manchester and Linkin Park from the Los Angeles area, the bands share the core values of ordinary youth across Asia. They like honesty, humility and melody. They don’t bother with impressive stage antics (a la Franz Ferdinand and the hilarious Lady Gaga) or trying to speak Japanese (as Weezer did). They don’t dazzle with inventions (Sonic Youth, Patrick Watson, Grizzly Bear) or polemics (Public Enemy, Placebo, Flaming Lips). Like upcoming powers Kasabian, the Klaxons and Funeral Party, they simply get down to work and give the people what they want.

These Japanese are not sheep. This generation is highly individualistic, as shown in their support for quirky acts like Peaches, Holy Fuck, the Melvins and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Fuji Rock, and 65 Days of Static, Mogwai, Aphex Twin and the brilliant new U.K. band The Horrors at Summer Sonic. The new breed are also world travelers who respect the traditional richness of acts such as Seun Kuti from Nigeria, Altan Urag from Mongolia, Rafven from Sweden, Upendra from Nepal, CSS from Brazil, and Americans Ben Harper, Mutemath, and Gogol Bordello.

Most of all, young Japanese like the truth, as reflected in their own favorite domestic bands, such as the Birthday, UA, Brahman, Boomboom Satellites, Friction (with mad animal drummer Tatsuya Nakamura), and his former bandmate Asai Kenichi of Blankey Jet City and The Sherbets.

Japanese are starving for truth, in music, media and politics. According to Kyodo, only about 30 percent of people under 30 bother to vote in elections, compared to roughly 80 percent of those over 60. Kyodo quotes Keio University Professor Yoshiaki Kobayashi as saying his studies indicate that youths “are skeptical that any of their involvement in society will change it for the better.”

I disagree. After seeing Japanese jumping like mad for the radicalism of Street Sweeper Social Club and Limp Bizkit, I suspect that if promoters Smash and Creativeman could organize political parties as well as they orchestrate Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic, they might one day beat the LDP and the DPJ. ❶