Rockin’ On With Restraint

Sponsored by the magazine Rockin’ On and staged at Seaside Park in the town of Hitachinaka about two hours northeast of Tokyo, the festival has sold out every year since 2004.

It’s become so big that it now takes place over two consecutive weekends. With greater popularity also comes greater responsibility, and lately some concertgoers and even some of the artists have been complaining about regulations at the festival. Japanese rock fans as a rule tend to be better behaved than their Western counterparts, so the venue restrictions usually in force when the issue is pop music may not seem as Draconian in practice as they look on paper.

While other festivals like Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic also pay lip service to anti-moshing directives, they are rarely enforced. Not so at Rock In Japan.

Concertgoers reported that more than a few attendees were “removed from the festival” for crowd-surfing. The festival is Aug 2-3 and 9-10.

The Japan Times reported that a few acts verbally protested these rules from the stage, including Dragon Ash, one of the most popular rock bands in Japan, which encouraged the crowd to “make a circle pit.”

The band’s vocalist, KJ Furuya, yelled, “This isn’t a dangerous act. It’s culture.”

The word spread and subsequently a number of other prominent rock bands successfully got their audiences to form circle pits. The lead singer of the punk band Kaisoku Tokyo reportedly said, “Saying ‘no’ is a fundamental of rock, not Rock In Japan.”

Other gripes include an 8 p.m. cut-off time for music and no overnight camping, though there is space available for tents. Punters from the city have to make the four-hour round trip multiple times if they want to attend more than one day.