Big bag of cheese 'n' mushroom sandwiches: yummy. Bottle of tequila: check. Crate of Yebisu beer: yup. Jump in the Devilmobile and find the city seems to never end, but after three hours on petrol and beer our ears are popping as we spiral up the backside of a mountain near Naeba in Niigata Prefecture on oxygen and tequila and reach out for heaven via the Fuji Rock Festival.
The Devilmobile is a van that talks to you. It objects when you try to go beyond 80 kph by going "bleepy bleepy blop blip" like R2D2 with a migraine sampled by Aphex Twin. It gets our feet a tapping ... nervously.
We're worried about parking 'cos the Prince Hotel (my room a mere 100,000 yen for four nights) tells me I have to call organizers Smash for a parking space and Smash tells me it's too late: I should have applied for a space when I applied for the press pass. When we get to the gate I show my hotel pass and we're given a three-day parking ticket with no questions asked. That's nice. The next morning we open the fridge and find our beer is not cold.
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