Summer Sonic Music Festival 2013

August 9-11 we headed to Osaka with some friends to attend Summer Sonic, an outdoor music festival held simultaneously in Tokyo and Osaka. It was hotter and more humid than it's possible to imagine but it was a really, really good line-up.

Imagine Dragons was playing as we pulled up in the bus and Hot Chelle Rae was playing as we navigated the crowd to the will-call ticket office. 

 We had already been standing in the sun for 2 hours waiting in line for the bus so Nick and I immediately sought shade. From here we watched Carly Rae Jepsen and Cyndi Lauper.

 It was too hot to function properly.

After Cyndi Lauper, we left our shady spot to see the end of Smashing Pumpkins. Then we got some food and went to the indoor stage to watch Johnny Marr. It was not air conditioned inside but it was at least out of the humidity.

We didn't really know any of Johnny's songs so we went to the basement to check out the Silent Disco. It was really cool! A silent disco is a club where all the music from the DJ is sent over the radio and in order to hear it, you have to wear headphones. So from an outsider's perspective, it looks as though everyone is just dancing to no music. But then you put on the headphones they give you and you can join in.

Finally, the sun had set. We went to the beginning of Earth, Wind, and Fire (the whole time we were concerned about their health)...

And then it was time to see MUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Their show was AMAZING!

 I never wanted it to end.

The next day there were no bands we wanted to see until the afternoon so we took a detour to the TGI Friday's in Universal City (by the Universal Studios Theme Park) to get some American Food.

 Funny Menu...

 There were artists painting all festival long and this was one of the creations.

 We went to buy some lemonade but we could only buy Remon Ade (!!!). 

Sorry not sorry- Engrish never gets old.

We spent some time shopping the leftover merch, then caught the end of Bullet For My Valentine. We stuck around and pushed as close to the front as we could get for the next performance: Fall Out Boy!! Another great show.

After FOB, we ventured to another stage to see the end of Stereophonics where I was able to fulfill a high school dream of mine: see Stereophonics perform Dakota. If only my bestie, Steph, could have been there with me!

The next show was Cheap Trick. I stayed back but Nick pushed all the way to the front and even caught a guitar pick!

And then, for the finale, it was time to see Metallica! Nick was particularly excited to see those guys.

Then we squuezed our sweaty, smelly selves back into the van and drove home, getting in at 3 am. Oofda!
I don't know the last time I have sweated that much- and I've run 2 marathons! It was fun and we saw some amazing shows but whose idea was to have it during August? Not a good time of year to spend gratuitous amounts of time outside in Japan. At least the bugs weren't bad!