Fujii Kaze made his Coachella debut on Saturday afternoon, taking the Mojave Stage on day two of the festival’s first weekend, with a 45-minute set from an artist now entirely at home on stages like this.
A low temple bell rang out, followed by the dry knock of wooden percussion, then a shinobue flute threading through the desert air. Fujii Kaze stepped out and perched on the steps leading up to a platform holding a grand piano, facing a crowd still riding the aftershock of Jack White’s overrun, last-minute set, one that had stretched well past its slot while, online, thousands of Kaze fans were already filling the livestream chat asking where he was.
The flute resolved into ‘It’s Alright’, the live debut of the track from his latest digital release ‘Pre:Prema’. A fusion of traditional Japanese instrumentation with hip-hop and R&B, the track has Kaze dropping into the highly stylised, exaggerated vocal delivery of kabuki theatre as he descended the steps, giving the desert crowd an unambiguous taste of home.
The band, plucked from across Japan’s jazz, soul and rock scenes, featured TAIKING of Suchmos on guitar, Ayatake Ezaki of WONK on keys, bassist and bandleader KOBY SHY, and drummer Norihide Saji. On backing vocals was Nashville songwriter Shy Carter, whose credits stretch from Charlie Puth to Meghan Trainor, alongside ARIWA of ASOUND, whose reggae lineage traces back to her mother’s work with pioneering new-wave band ZELDA.
‘Matsuri’ kept the Japanese aesthetics alive, ARIWA and Shy Carter’s harmonies the centrepiece, though the livestream mix had the backing vocals sitting louder than Kaze’s mic for much of the track. Kaze, who has something of a reputation for onstage fumbles, didn’t disappoint either, sending the mic tumbling after holding the mic stand like a guitar right as the song began. Not quite the New York keyboard stand collapse of 2024, but the timing was impeccable.
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‘Casket Girl’, the opening cut from his all-English third album ‘Prema’, pivoted the set into the Western-facing pop and R&B of the 80s and 90s that defined the album. Then ‘I Need U Back’, with TAIKING’s retro-tinted guitar solos cutting through the tent, TAIKING visibly delighted with every run. “Stay hydrated. Be kind, stay safe”, wise words.
“My name is Fujii Kaze. I’m from Japan. And this is my debut single called ‘Nan-Nan’ back in 2020. It’s Japanese gospel, I would say”. Toward the end of the track he climbed the steps to the Yamaha grand piano at the centre of the stage and closed it out standing over the keys, pounding away like they owed him money, the tent roaring at the end.
He paused, composed himself as the lights dimmed, then sat back down and, lightly on the keys, began the intro for the live debut of ‘Okay, Goodbye’. Introducing it as “my favourite song, from my favourite album”, TAIKING, relieved of guitar duties for the opening bars, clapped along from the side of the stage. The song’s central message, I am all I need, delivered without a trace of preachiness.
Live debut of Fujii Kaze’s ‘Okay, Goodbye’ at Coachella 2026
Shouting out the band, Fujii Kaze introduced Shy Carter as “my king” before adding, “with him, we wrote this beautiful song together”, teeing up ‘You’ for yet another live debut. A retro-coded swayer, it eased the pace while spelling out the core idea of Prema that everything you’re searching for is already within you, “all you need is right there in your soul”.
Kaze turned to the crowd: “Can we get a Prema?”, then explained the meaning of the Sanskrit album title — “spiritual, selfless, supreme kind of love… we can manifest that kind of love inside, right? You can call it God itself” — before getting a call-and-response going as he began the titular track. As it drew to a close, anticipation built while he made his way back to the piano; after hearing what he did on the keys earlier, everyone was primed for the next highlight.
He stayed on the piano. The lights went red. Dark, foreboding notes, aggressively played, before opening into the blissful melody of ‘Shinunoga E-wa’, the tent erupting the moment it clicked what was happening. Behind him, a giant Kaze loomed on the screen, watching over his own performance. Kaze sang it looser than other songs, somewhere between an artist tired of their own hit and one confident enough it can do the heavy lifting while he takes a back seat. He wandered the stage, mic perched between two fingers, as the crowd sang along around him. At the end he slumped lifelessly over the edge of the stage.
Laying there just long enough to make you think “is everything ok?”, he rose back to life for set closer ‘Hachikō’. Pulling his hair tie loose, Kaze moved across the stage with gathering energy, closing on a crackling, passionate yell before straightening himself up for the final bow.
After a year on festival stages across America, including Outside Lands, Austin City Limits, and Lollapalooza, a Coachella debut didn’t faze him, even following a surprise set from a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Any technical mix issues or a slip of the mic aside, the performance was a crystal clear display of his control as both a singer and pianist, backed by one of the tightest bands on any Coachella stage this weekend. By the time ‘Shinunoga E-Wa’ and ‘Hachikō’ closed it out, the crowd was fully with him. Held together by a consistent thread of self-acceptance and spirituality, there was no tension between his Japanese roots and the outward-facing pop instincts of his latest album. Floating across the stage with an easy, breezy presence, he moved with the kind of lightness his name implies.
If this is the version he brings back to Europe, he’ll need bigger venues.
