TOKYO, Jan 6 (AFP) - Japan's premier Fuji Rock Festival will switch seasons and move nationwide from Thursday in a swing of six charity concerts to raise funds for victims of the killer October earthquake in its home region.
Thirty-seven Japanese bands will play in the concerts starting Thursday evening in Osaka and culminating with four simultaneous shows Monday in two parts of Tokyo, neighboring Yokohama and the northern city of Sapporo.
Fuji Rock, arguably the most famous rock festival in Asia, is held every summer amid the ski slopes of Niigata prefecture, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Tokyo.
The province was rattled on October 23 by a temblor of 6.8 on the Richter scale followed by hundreds of aftershocks, killing 40 people and injuring more than 2,850 others in Japan's deadliest earthquake in a decade.
Some 90,000 turned out for the three-day Fuji Rock festival which started July 30 with performances by artists including Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed, reunited American rock icons The Pixies and British garage innovators The Streets.
The charity concerts, some of which are already sold out, will feature Japanese artists who took part in previous Fuji Rock festivals, with part of the proceeds heading to reconstruction of Niigata.
Fuji Rock, named for Japan's most famous mountain near which it debuted in 1997, was founded by Masahiro Hidaka, who was inspired by two trips to Britain's celebrated Glastonbury festival.
01/06/2005 02:04 GMT - AFP