The next morning was greeted by the sounds of Taiko drums. The sun was out and there was Mount Fuji, in all her glory, wearing a small cloud cap. The blue sky was blinding compared to the day before, but no one was complaining. And by the time the twelve-member instrumental ska group, the Sideburns, had taken the stage, everyone was grinning like lunatics.

And speaking of which, Tokyo's musically demented looney toons, Shibusa Shirazu, turned in yet another amazing performance. Word continues to spread about this amorphous noise-riot, so the stage was swarmed with hard-core fans and neophytes alike. As conductor Fuwa-san broke the band into a slow march, the butoh dancers, with their taut semi-nude bodies painted white, drew our attention - especially the "broken butterflies" and the one with the intriguing Mohawk-sock combo (I'll leave it at that).

But wait, there was one other dancer that seemed much larger and uglier than the rest. Wait ... is that ... it IS! To our surprise, Jason Mayall, from Smash London, had decided to get in on the act, painting himself white and writhing about on stage. At one point, they even attempted to shave his head, but the clippers clogged on the first run, giving him a reverse-mohawk.

After a set of their killer mix of ska-gypsy-jazz-rock, they finished with "Senzu", the psycho-polka that ends their live album, Shibu-Hata. Damn, I'll never get tired of that.