It's hitting 40 degrees in the concrete badlands of Odaiba and the asphalt beneath our feet is attaining the viscosity of quicksand. We wanna run for cover, but this stuff sucks at your sneakers and makes the beer tent slower to get to. The only sea breeze today is the cocktail mixed by the bartender, but if we don't finish our drink within five minutes it's lukewarm. We knock 'em back. But instead of getting merry, we stagger round with a premature hangover, aka sunstroke. It's been a crap summer but today the sun is making up for lost time. It's out to kill us. And before the day's over there will be at least one death at this year's "Rock 'n' Roll Summit."
(Cut to backstage: There's a "room" here, like on a cheap film set. Just two walls and a TV camera, but no roof! When a band comes off stage, drowning in sweat and about to die, they are led here and interviewed by Fuji TV . . . under the brain-melting sun. They sit on a sofa and suffer. Next to them is a prop: a table on which is stationed a tiny oval glass bowl with a solitary orange goldfish swimming about in ever decreasing circles. The bands being interviewed are as wet as the poor fish.)
The fairground we're in -- complete with merry-go-round and video-game arcade -- is opposite the futuristic Fuji TV building and is the venue for the TV company's fourth annual "Rock 'n' Roll Summit" event. It's a highlight of the festival year as Fuji TV have a habit of inviting some of the coolest garage-rock bands in Japan. As garage is the hottest genre in the world right now I was hoping to see if Japan's impressively disparate garage bands matched up to the likes of The White Stripes, Kings of Leon and Datsuns on the big stage. However, the cream of Japan's garage scene is not here -- bar a couple of bands. Hardly a summit. (Though with the entrance fee a paltry 1,000 yen, we're not complaining too much.)