Fuji Rock was once rumored to be a traveling festival.
After the event’s inaugural edition in 1997, which took place at the foot of the actual Mount Fuji and was cut in half by a typhoon, the following year it was held on the Tokyo waterfront on an undeveloped landfill site. There were only two stages, but the roster was impressive: Bjork, Beck, Goldie, Elvis Costello and Primal Scream.
If anyone remembers this contextual blip in the Fuji chronicles, it's probably because of the mud. The day before, the site was hit with a torrential rain that soaked the ground. Thirty-five thousand dancing souls churned up the muck, turning the entire place into a jiggling slab of tofu. Even Toyosu Station, the nearest public transportation point, ended up slathered in brown slickness.