Babymetal - Live at The O2 Academy Brixton
Babymetal Live at Brixton Academy, 2 July 2019
Riho Sayashi as Riho-Metal, Suzuka Nakamoto as Su-metal, and Moa Kikuchi as Moa-Metal
© Copyright Stewart Marsden
On 2 July 2019, Babymetal were playing The Brixton Academy. It was my birthday. I was going!
Some time before I’d heard of Babymetal, a friend saw them live. He was very excited to tell me what might happen if you put a video game version of Pantera in a blender with Kylie Minogue and Cliff Richard, and then had three young Japanese J-pop girls drink it. He tried desperately to convince me to look them up. Naturally, I thought he had been out in the sun too long and should probably go and lie down somewhere.
I thought nothing more of my friend’s musical recommendation.
Some time later, I was sat at another friend’s house on a weekend afternoon, drinking beer and wine, getting slowly sloshed and enjoying the top 100 metal countdown on TV. To our surprise, three young J-pop girls came on, dancing like Kylie Minogue to video-game Pantera-style riffs, with vocal harmonies as catchy as a Cliff classic: “Megitsune”. A few tracks later they were on again, this time with “Karate”. “This must be what my mate was talking about,” I thought. Jeff, as it turned out, was right. Babymetal are brilliant.
Brixton
Fresh from their fantastic festival performance at Glastonbury, which I watched on the BBC, Babymetal had drawn a crowd for their one-off London headline show that formed a queue encircling The Brixton Academy, and then some. I had to wrestle my way past it, and the bootleg T-shirt sellers, to the side entrance line.
Once inside and with the paperwork done, I headed to the bar. I had been in the bar at The Brixton Academy many times before, but this time it was very different. Emos, cosplayers, casual fans, old-school biker metalheads, sixty-something rockers and techno kids mingled together, drank and were merry. While I was waiting to be served, I was first made welcome by a yellow octopus. It felt like Christmas at Harukiya, the bar from Akira. I drank my beer and silently watched the eclectic crowd intermingle, with a smile on my face, wondering what Dostoevsky would have made of the sight.
Sleep Token
First up on stage were Sleep Token. They are self-described, probably for the better, as “a masked, anonymous collective of musicians, united by their worship of an ancient deity crudely dubbed ‘Sleep’”. They appeared as dark figures on a subtly yet creatively lit stage, their masks barely visible under their dark hoods. The three static, silhouetted backing singers near the rear of the stage could give stone statues a run for their money. Their sound was eerie, echoing, electro-synth vocals against slow, rhythmic, dark, moody ambient metal, if there is such a thing. It wasn’t to my taste, and given the upbeat vibe of the headline act, they were rather out of place.
But there were a lot of fans in the audience enjoying the low guitar tones and deep vocals.
Amaranthe
Next up on stage were the Scandinavian rockers Amaranthe. They were as different from the opening act as you could possibly get: a hair metal, Eurovision-friendly rock band. They were great fun. Their three vocalists each brought their own style to the stage, engaged with the crowd and got the place alive. The trio performed superbly, with their rock-steady rhythm section giving the Academy a taste of what they can deliver. I think their set was cut short, and I would personally have loved them to play longer.
Those Nordics know what rock really is, and they’re not afraid to swing their hair.
Babymetal
The lights go down and the Academy is dark. There is some hustle on stage as it’s prepared for the headline act. Babymetal’s logo is projected onto the back wall and the excitement becomes electric. People were going crazy before the girls were even on stage.
The Brixton Academy has hosted many bands over the years, but on this night, make no mistake about it, Brixton belonged to Babymetal.
They opened with “Megitsune”: those heavy Pantera-style rhythms, Kylie dancing and contagious Cliff harmonies delivered in J-pop. The entire downstairs turned into one giant mosh pit and stayed that way until almost the end.
Babymetal’s performance was fast, furious and fun, delivered with smiling faces and dance choreography pulled off with military precision. Suzuka Nakamoto as Su-metal, Moa Kikuchi as Moa-metal and Riho Sayashi, the rumoured new third member, affectionately dubbed Riho-metal by fans for the evening, gave it their all for a solid hour of non-stop, first-class entertainment to a sold-out venue.
The set mixed universally established favourites like “Gimme Chocolate!!”, “Distortion” and “Karate” with new songs “Elevator Girl” and “PA PA YA!!”. Fans of all shapes and sizes were singing along as if Japanese was their native language.
The highlight of the evening for me was Su-metal’s solo piano version of “The One”. For six minutes at the end of the night, in the middle of all the metal, The Brixton Academy fell silent and still as everyone watched in awe of her incredible talent.
Suzuka Nakamoto can really sing.
They closed with “Road of Resistance”, and the venue shook to its foundations again as fans moshed, jumped, slammed and danced in their own way. It was raining beer. We all spilled out into the street, and I watched fans in dishevelled cosplay costumes pour out of the door arm in arm, singing with a bunch of old rockers in beer-soaked Slayer T-shirts, all wanting the night to continue, as I did. An otherwise unlikely friendship was forged in the crucible of kawaii chaos.
Music truly transcends the social boundaries we impose on ourselves. If Babymetal were, as they claim, really sent by the Fox God to eradicate them altogether, I can report that they are off to a fine start, and I’ll definitely be back for more.
Setlist
Megitsune
Elevator Girl
Ind-metal
Distortion
Starlight
Syncopation
PA PA YA!!
Gimme Chocolate!!
KARATE
THE ONE
Road of Resistance
