BLANKEY JET CITY at FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL '00, Naeba Ski Resort, July 28, 2000

About the artist

BLANKEY JET CITY were a rock trio: Kenichi Asai on vocals and guitar, Toshiyuki Terui on bass and Tatsuya Nakamura on drums^[1]. All three came from Nagoya^[2], and the band's formation is dated either to 1987 in Nagoya^[3] or to February 1990 in Tokyo^[2]. In August 1990 they appeared on the TBS television show Miyake Yuji no Ikasu Band Tengoku^[4], won five weeks running to become its sixth "Grand Ika-ten King," and promptly signed with Toshiba EMI^[2].

Their major-label debut, the album Red Guitar and the Truth, came out on April 12, 1991^[1]. "Akai Tanbarin" ("red tambourine") and "Danderaion" ("dandelion") were hits in 1998^[5], and the band's official site also names "Fuyu no Sētā" ("winter sweater"), "Warui Hitotachi" ("bad people") and "Gasorin no Yurekata" ("the way gasoline sways") among their best-known songs^[1]. The writer Dai Onojima recalls that at their early shows the audience often stayed completely silent when a song ended: not out of boredom, he says, but because no one knew how to react to what they had just heard^[5].

Why this was the last show

On May 10, 2000, the day their final album, HARLEM JETS, came out, BLANKEY JET CITY announced in a newspaper advertisement that they were breaking up^[1][5]. According to their former manager, Tsutomu Fujii, declaring a "breakup" outright was the members' way of drawing a line for themselves^[6]. A farewell tour, LOVE IS DIE DIE IS A CHANGE, began in May, a last single, "SATURDAY NIGHT," came out on July 5, and the tour ended with LAST DANCE, two nights at Yokohama Arena on July 8 and 9^[7]. The official site calls them the band's last "one-man" concerts^[1].

Yokohama was not the last stage, though. In Fujii's account, the formal ending was the tour and Yokohama; Fuji Rock, which came afterwards, was more of a present to the three. He suggested finishing at the festival, which he saw as a new culture born in Japan, so that fans who knew only Blankey might discover other music there. The members said it sounded like them, and it was settled. Since the band had already granted his team's requests for songs they rarely played, especially at Yokohama, he says, ending at Fuji Rock meant they could simply tear straight through^[6].

According to the official site, the festival set on July 28 became the band's final stage^[1]. It came after the farewell tour had ended^[8], and BARKS, reporting from Naeba, introduced it as the last stage of a band that had announced its breakup^[9].

Sources still differ on where the band ended. Kenichi Asai's official profile dates the breakup to July 9 at Yokohama Arena^[10], while a 2025 Natalie feature says the band broke up with its Fuji Rock appearance^[4]. One fan quoted on Fuji Rock's official fan site in 2024 remembered feeling that Yokohama was the real ending and Fuji Rock a lucky bonus^[11]. This page covers the band's last stage rather than their last one-man show.

What is known about the day

The 2000 festival ran for three days from July 28 at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata Prefecture, its second year there. More than 100 acts played on four stages, and the festival's official attendance figure is 61,000^[12]. On the first day, the GREEN STAGE bill included Foo Fighters and The Chemical Brothers, with BLANKEY JET CITY listed last; THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT closed the same list the next day^[12]. They were the festival's first Japanese headliners^[13].

BARKS reported a cheer as the three took their places on the dim stage, and the rain, which had been falling steadily, soon stopped. They opened with "Puranetariumu" ("planetarium"). By the third song, "SKUNK," the crowd was fired up, and three singles in a row, "Akai Tanbarin," "Gasorin no Yurekata" and "SATURDAY NIGHT," drew a mass singalong. The report also names early songs rarely heard by then, such as "Zetsubō to Iu Na no Chikatetsu" ("a subway called despair") and "SOON CRAZY"^[9]. Writing for Natalie in 2025, Tomonori Shiba describes a roar the moment the three appeared, and a band that played on without any show of sentiment^[13].

After "Boku wa Yankī" came an unfamiliar up-tempo number that the BARKS reporter took for a new song, and the main set ended with "D.I.J. no Pisutoru" ("D.I.J.'s pistol")^[9]. Back for the encore, Asai told the crowd he thought music was probably something very important all over the world^[13]. Gently, as if talking to a friend, he announced the last song; BARKS notes that this was the first time that day a member had spoken of the end. The song was "BABY BABY." When it was over, Tatsuya Nakamura threw his sticks at the drum kit and walked off, and Toshiyuki Terui put his bass down with unusual roughness^[9]. The band's official timeline describes a 90-minute set played straight through, perhaps the first in their history, closing a career of ten years and five months^[7].

What the show left behind

On July 28, 2025, exactly 25 years later, the band's official YouTube channel posted "Gasorin no Yurekata" from that night, upconverted to 4K^[14][15]. A year earlier, the label had put the band's whole catalog on streaming services on July 28, explaining that the date marked the Fuji Rock headline set and the band's last stage^[16]. LAST DANCE, the last one-man shows, came out as an album and on video on September 20, 2000^[7], and a 2025 box set collected both nights in full^[17].

After the breakup, Asai stepped up his work with SHERBETS and went on to AJICO, with the singer UA, and JUDE, started in 2002. Nakamura turned his project LOSALIOS into a full band, and Terui began a project called CARNE in 2001 and also formed ROSSO with Yusuke Chiba of THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT^[18]. Writing in 2024, Dai Onojima noted that BLANKEY JET CITY had not played in public since 2000, and that they and THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT were the only Japanese acts to have closed Fuji Rock's GREEN STAGE, setting aside 2021, when only Japanese artists performed^[5]. The band's official site names Daiki Tsuneta of King Gnu among the later artists they influenced^[1].

Both nights at Yokohama Arena had ended with "BABY BABY"^[19]. Nineteen days later, so did the last night at Naeba.