page_title: Japanese rock
section_title: New band boom, further overseas recognition
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese rock / History / The 2010s / New band boom, further overseas recognition
caption_attribution_description: L'arc En Ciel @ MSG - 3/25/12 - 040
context_page_description: Japanese rock, sometimes abbreviated to J-rock, is rock music from Japan. Influenced by American and British rock of the 1960s, the first rock bands in Japan performed what is called Group Sounds, with lyrics almost exclusively in English. Folk rock band Happy End in the early 1970s are credited as the first to sing rock music in the Japanese language. Punk rock bands Boøwy and The Blue Hearts and hard rock/heavy metal groups X Japan and B'z led Japanese rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s by achieving major mainstream success.
  Japanese rock music has received recognition worldwide, being widely known in Asia, and has survived through decades competing with its contemporary local style J-pop. Rock bands such as B'z and Mr. Children are among the best selling music acts in Japan. The demand for rock in Japan is so huge that festivals mainly focused on it like the Fuji Rock Festival have been introduced since the late 90s with attendances reaching a peak of 200,000 people per festival making it the largest outdoor music event in the country.
context_section_description: During the late 2000s there was an increasing number of bands that had built up a strong fan base prior to their main break-through in the music industry. Indie band flumpool sold over one million copies of their first digital single "Hana ni nare". Sakanaction performed their first live concert at Nippon Budokan while enjoying major success with their singles "Aruku Around" and "Rookie". Sakanaction was pinned as a different type of band since they experimented with electronic music and synthrock. Other bands that have gone mainstream included Gesu no Kiwami Otome, Sekai no Owari, and Alexandros. Because of the sudden major increase on indie bands and rock bands in general which competed with contemporary J-Pop artists, the movement has been referred to as a band boom by the media and has been praised as a change to the Japanese music in general. Since these bands don't rely in a very heavy sound but take a softer, catchier approach, they proved to be more appealing to pop fans that are not familiar with rock.
  Veteran rock bands like L'Arc~en~Ciel and X Japan sold out concerts at Madison Square Garden in 2012 and 2014, respectively, among other large arenas through the United States. One OK Rock performed at the Taipei Arena, being the first time a Japanese band did so, and additionally sold out shows at the AsiaWorld-Arena and Mall of Asia Arena, the largest overseas shows they had to date with an average attendance of 12,000 people at each concert. Slap-guitarist Miyavi, who has his roots in visual kei, has toured worldwide extensively since 2008, when his This Iz The Japanese Kabuki Rock Tour 2008 tour covered a distance of approximately 48,385 miles, equivalent to almost two trips around the world, and the majority of the concerts were sold out and covered extensively by media organizations. It was the most successful international tour undertaken by a Japanese artist in history. As of 2015, Miyavi had performed at 250 concerts in more than 30 countries around the world.
caption: L'Arc~en~Ciel performing at Madison Square Garden in 2012, the first Japanese act to headline the venue.[43]
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