Hello, what's that I see looming menacingly out of the wind and rain? Could it be? Yes! It's the fucking great mountain upon whose thirty-degree lower slopes I will be attempting to pitch my sieve-like tent in about thirty minutes. Hurrah!

So, another year, another Fuji Rock, another torrential downpour. When Japanese weather forecasts say there is a 70% chance of rain, this means that it will rain. When they say there is a 50% chance of rain, this means it will rain. When they say there is a 30% chance of rain, this means that it will rain.

The weather forecast for this weekend says there is a 10% chance of rain. It is raining.

Fortunately, by Friday morning the sun is burning away the remnants of last night's drips and drops as the Clear And Refreshing delegation stomps on down to the festival arena to try out our nifty new prison-style hi-tech electronic identification wristbands on the barrel-chested, ruthlessly bemulleted, neck-less U.S. military type security personnel. We are wistfully reminiscing like a bunch of old men about the days of Nelson and Monty, when the armed forces were something to be proud of rather than simply mocked and quietly feared, when British Sea Power (Green Stage) burst into life. Their on-stage foliage is mirrored on all sides by the towering trees and lush vegetation of the Niigata mountainsides around us, and the sight of dozens of alarmed dragonflies and giant moths gathering around the stage as they charge through "Remember Me" was an eerily surreal but magically appropriate moment. There's no "Fear Of Drowning", but "Carrion" and "Lately" are magnificent and Noble is his usual mentalist self, diving off speaker stacks, hauling bandmates onto his shoulders and snogging vocalist Yan like there's no tomorrow. A spectacular opening act that nothing else today will top.

So, The Killers or The Bees? I'm hungry and don't fancy the hike over to the White Stage so it's got to be The Killers (Red Marquee). In terms of good humour and sheer, madly grinning, in-your-face joy, these guys are up there with The Polyphonic Spree. In fact, kitmaster Ronnie Vannucci seems to be feeling every drumbeat like it's his first time, and Brandon Flowers is probably one of the most relentlessly positive men in rock as he beams, "This song is called 'Mr. Brightside', I hope you like it". Yes Brandon, we do like it. We like it a lot. And we like "All These Things That I've Done" as well. And I'm going to be walking around all weekend singing "Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll" until my friends desert me and my neighbours lynch me.

Next up are the unfathomably popular Snow Patrol (Red Marquee), about whom, try as I might, I can't think of anything interesting to say. They were nice. Like a cup of tea. Like a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon. Like Coldplay. Fuck off.

Eschewing the wailing tedium of Haven, over on the Green Stage, Asian Kung-Fu Generation (Red Marquee) are a pleasant enough, vaguely melodic, vaguely punk, vaguely Britpop influenced diversion while we eat giant ostrich kebabs. I really want to like this band because they have some of the most striking and just downright cool looking sleeve artwork around, but they're second rate, fair-to-middling, mid-position chart stodge and in the battle for my attention with the greasy, dripping chunks of giant bird-meat they were always going to be on the losing side.

The Zutons (Red Marquee) bring a much needed dash of colour to the increasingly ominous looking grey clouds gathering overhead, their matching yellow boiler suits making them look like a kind of shabbier, friendlier, more scouse Polysics. Compared with Snow Patrol, the difference in the audience's reaction is tangible. There are people bouncing up and down, hands clapping, a bit of singing along to the "Waoo-hoo-hoo" bits, roars of moist, teenage adulation for dancing saxophonist Abi Harding. This is a bunch of people at a gig, where Snow Patrol's audience was a bunch of people in a lift.

Dashing over yonder, the first artist of the festival that anyone's actually heard of, PJ Harvey, (Green Stage) is rocking out with efficient abandon. Advertisements for her new album stapled over the back of her dress, she rips though some decent but unspectacular new stuff and gets pulses racing with the great and still-spectacular old stuff. With Courtney Love having apparently successfully boarded the plane, but uncertainty reigning beyond that, Peej retains a composure, charm and what some people might call "dignity", that balances the harshness and rawness of her music. Nevertheless, it's let down by a nagging sense that she might just be a little bit too comfortable. A niggling feeling that a bit more friction and conflict is needed to help the set rise above the level of professional but unexceptional.

Of course, that could just be our expectations, what with this being the first appearance in Japan by The Pixies (Green Stage) since God was a boy. Their greatest achievement tonight is the way that, despite one of the cameras on the big screens hovering unflatteringly around Kim Deal's arse for much of the performance, they manage to seem so effortlessly youthful and at times even seem to be (whisper it) enjoying themselves. Technically they're all over the place, especially Kim's bass, but as they rattle through classic after classic, it's like you can feel the band discovering these songs anew. "Bone Machine?" Nice. "Velouria"? Tune, man. "Monkey Gone To Heaven"? Wow, did I write that? "Debaser"? How does that go again, Kim? Oh, you don't know either. Let's try again.

Anyway, that's my fill of sentimental delight for the night so I'm not about to hang around and watch that miserable old bastard Lou Reed growl his way through another hour of nostalgia, or even worse, the dreaded "new stuff". Time to get more ostrich. There's a funny sense at events like Fuji Rock that Western artists are considered in some way superior to Japan's own bands. This is rubbish of course. Western bands are just tourism for most of these people. Come, see what the skinny English guy with the strangely wet-looking hair and the guitar is doing! Ahh, let us look in wonderment for a short time until he plays the hit song that we know. Hmm... that was sure fun, I saw Snow Patrol and they played "Run". In the meantime here's Supercar (Red Marquee) as casually as you like, whipping a crowd of a couple of thousand Japanese youngsters up into a titanic frenzy. Every few seconds there's a roar of excitement and a sea of hands are waving in the air, everyone is doing that weird double-foot kick-dancing that Japanese kids seem to love so much, there are even a couple of glowsticks in there. Whohoo! They played "White Surf Style 5"! Yeeeaaahhhh! Miki's singing in a high pitched voice on "Strobolights"! Wow! They closed with "Fairway"! Hey, did you come here alone? Let's fuck! In the meantime, the same bunch of foreigners who always complain about Japanese audiences being "too fucking quiet" are standing around the corners of the tent with their arms folded thinking to themselves, "Yeah, it's pretty good, kind of like dance music, but I don't get what everyone's so excited about." -Ian Martin, Aug.12.04.