Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2011
Photos by Dan Grunebaum
No one could accuse the surf culture-branded Greeenroom Festival of having a cutting-edge music policy. But sometimes all that’s needed for a successful music festival are good tunes, good vibes and a good location.
Greenroom delivers all these in spades.
Sprawling in and around Yokohama’s atmospheric Red Brick Warehouses, the festival has learned over seven years to hit all the right buttons with its clientele of surfers, beach acolytes and fans of all things mellow and groovy.
We showed up for day one of the weekend shindig at the century-old warehouses—set amid grasslands on Yokohama’s waterfront—to the ska and punk-tinged old school rock of the Pontiacs, the latest creature to spring from the hyperactive imagination of singer-songwriter and all-round Svengali, Kenichi Asai.
Asai’s reedy voice gave way to the diaphanous, jazz-inflected piano pop of statuesque Japanese-American songstress Emi Meyer, who sang proficiently in both languages but made it clear where her allegiances lie with the song, “New York—I Love It.”
Greenroom has two main stages and bands alternate in rapid succession, so there’s rarely a break in the entertainment. When there is, you can exit the festival grounds to a park next to the warehouses where the “Bird Stage” is open even to those not holding tickets.
We elected to do so, taking in local Shonan beach phenomenon Kimaguren’s easygoing, singsong hip-hop and then the expert James Brown-inspired instrumental funk of Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro, who fired up the crowd with guest singer, rapper-honey Coma-chi.
Greenroom bills itself not just as a music festival but also as an art and film event. We duly sampled some of its non-musical pleasures. These ran from an exquisite two-story treehouse sculpted from intertwined limbs, to a series of galleries crammed with surf and street-inspired artwork—and shaggy artists from Maui to France enthusing about how psyched they were to be invited to Japan.
In between sets punters could also absorb the latest surf films, yoga classes, environmental NPO’s booths, and a flea market raising funds for quake survivors. The usual assortment of food stands were on hand with cheap eats, but you also had the option of sneaking into the normally operating warehouses—now converted to malls—for a proper sitdown dinner (which we did).
The sun had already set over the scenic Yokohama waterfront—a well-executed harmony of historic buildings, modern developments, bay and parkland—by the time we headed back out to catch headliner Hayley Sales.
Sales is the bright young thing of the surf set. But her tanned-and-toned 24-year-old surf babe bod belies an extremely dry sense of humor, which she deploys in folk-rock numbers that inveigh against the corporate interests that rule the land.
Accompanying Sales on expert, chickin’ pickin’ guitar was a burly old hippy who gradually stole the show with his tasty licks. Midway through the set, Sales nonchalantly announced, “By the way, this is my Dad,” eliciting a ripple of laughter from the crowd.
The multigenerational theme extended to the audience. Numerous yama mamas and papas steered strollers through the festival grounds, and the music was never too loud or aggressive for kids, many of whom could be seen running barefoot.
It would be easy to wax cynical about the branding of surf culture lifestyle, but when it’s done as expertly as Greenroom does it, respect is due. In the wake of the quake, the event got Japan’s summer music festival season off to a better start than could have been expected even only a month ago.
