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Fuji Rock Festival 2012: The hangover

It's been more than a month since I came back from the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and the past few weeks have been a long grieving phase for me.

Never has anything affected me so much—not anything in the past decade's worth of watching and taking photos of musicians that I love.

Today, I am latching on to the past and feel at the mercy of my emotions.

My musical bucket list

As I shoot concerts and musicians for a living, I had my own bucket list of artists I wanted to photograph before I (or they) die.

Radiohead was on my list. And they were headliners at the Fuji Rock Fest, which I was attending with fellow Yahoo! blogger Francis Brew.

Before flying to Japan, I had been so emotional at the thought of finally seeing the band. And it blew my mind even more that I would be taking pictures of them!

It would be the most challenging for me as I knew I had to set aside part of my extra-giddy fan self. I kept turning to Facebook to say that I would watch Radiohead, cry to "Arpeggi" with mud under my feet and bask in the feeling of being surrounded by the beautiful mountains of Naeba.

No tears for Radiohead

Surprisingly, there were no tears when I finally saw them live onstage. I guess I still could not believe that I was thisclose to them. Radiohead was everything I expected them to be. "This is too good to be true," I kept thinking to myself.

But the dam broke on the second night. Having just taken photos of James Blake, I rushed back to catch the tail end of Noel Gallagher's set. From far away I heard him say, "See you when I see you," before he started to play "Don't Look Back in Anger."

It came rushing back: those years I was coming to terms with being a teen, a silly schoolgirl who worried about whether some boy from another school liked her or not. And Oasis was the band that was musically present at that time.

Tears just came streaming down my face. Normally I'd be self-conscious about crying but for the first time in my life, I didn't care at all.

3 days of peace and music

Of the other bands at the three-day fest that also affected me, the Swedish hardcore band Refused did so on pure shock level. No other band made my heart stop on their first note. And I've never been more scared and excited about hearing them and seeing them reunite.

I could go on and on about how each artist affected me, but everything was much more than the awe of watching all those bands. Being surrounded by more than a hundred thousand people who were there for the music and seeing all those great Japanese musicians get the same level of support as the international acts despite having more than a dozen venues within the festival filled me with both joy and envy.

I guess my experience at the Fuji Rock Festival approximates the feeling people got in Woodstock in 1969: three days of peace and music, being in an alternate reality, a bubble in which seeing all the bands you only dared to dream of are suddenly there, in front of you.

Then, from that perfect world of music and fun company, just when I was about to get comfortable in the thought of being in the festival, it was over.

I must tell you, it hasn't been easy for me. I may be back in Manila, but Fuji Rock stole my heart.

Niña Sandejas is an award-winning music photographer whose work has appeared here and abroad. She was included in Preview magazine's 2011 Creative It List and was named in early 2012 as one of 14 Women Who Rock by Rogue magazine . Visit her blog, like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram @rosarioko.