BABYMETAL – Brisbane, Australia 8th June 2023
The Fortitude Music Hall is about as tightly packed as you can get, as this sold out gig by kawaii metal phenomenon Babymetal gets underway.
The hugely enthusiastic crowd are even spreading plentiful amounts of love to the support act, in this case Sydney progressive metal band Reliqa. Fronted by powerhouse vocalist Monique Pym, their performance savvy has evolved even since Maximum Volume last caught them at the Monolith Festival in 2022. The Babymetal audience, a curious blend of metal heads, kawaii/J-pop fans and standard music nerds like your humble narrator, are highly receptive to Reliqa’s complex but accessible prog metal anthems.
Monique’s vocals and stage persona are full of power and confidence, while the band’s highly technical approach is performed with both precision and showmanship. The songs take us from dizzying time signatures to visceral breakdowns to gentle piano passages, while always remembering to take the audience along on the journey. Dedicating the crunching Safety to tonight’s headliners, Reliqa leave a strong impression and have doubtlessly won some new fans tonight.
As a sci-fi themed opening film gives us the Babymetal origin story, our demon-masked band stalk the stage for the pacey attack of Babymetal Death, before the dramatic choreographed entry of our three heroines, Moametal, Momometal and lead vocalist Su-metal. All focus is on the three girls, blending cute and crazed as they perform a dizzying array of dances and audience participation bits, while Su-metal’s strong pop vocals somehow manage to cut through the blistering power metal performed by the band.
The combination of J-pop with dexterous power metal is one that the casual listener may find novelty value in, particularly with the early singles such as the thunderous pop fizz of Gimme Chocolate (performed with unabashed joy tonight). What said casual listener may be surprised by is the amount of genuinely good tunes Babymetal have released over the last few years. We hear evidence of this tonight.
Not only are there the expected earworm chantalongs like PA PA YA!! and BxMxC, but also hooky well-written songs such as Road Of Resistance, which goes a million miles an hour but also has a great melody, pop and metal making perfect companions. The more mid-tempo Monochrome has the guitars turned to 11 and a “millennial whoop” chorus reminiscent of the early 2010’s.
And while pop and metal are the main two ingredients, there is also ambient, industrial, trip-hop and dance thrown into the blender as well.
The very diverse crowd (from children to pensioners) lap up every second, while Su-metal, Moametal and Momometal don’t let up for a second, their singing, choreography and audience connection completely on-point throughout. This reviewer has always found Babymetal entertaining, but this concert completely exceeded my expectations. Put simply, it was a slick and exciting concert of euphoric pop metal.
Reviewer: Matt Thrower
Photographer: Davey Rintala @fastlanephoto
