Following on from fantastic gigs from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Perfume last year, when pop rock girl-group Scandal announced they'd be hitting London this April, I knew I had to be there.
Best known for their anime OP themes to the likes of Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the four-piece turn out perky, delightfully catchy tunes that probably find their closest English comparison in the likes of pop-punk outfits like Paramore. In short - big on the choruses, rockin' guitar riffs and girl-power.
As with Kyary and Perfume's shows - the venue was completely packed. People often talk about Japanese music in the UK as a relative niche (the Islington Academy being an apt venue perhaps, then, considering it often caters to that equally fanatical niche - up-and-coming metal acts) - but the fervour from the fanbase throughout the show was palpable. A little restrained at times, perhaps - but part of me kind of expected that, considering the audience seemed to mainly comprise a mix of otaku and rock types.
The band's big singles aside, a personal highlight has to be Oyasumi, from the band's current studio album Hello World. Here, drummer Rina Suzuki takes over on lead vocal duties, working her way through a characteristically sweet vocal as the band trade their usual feisty guitar anthems for a slower, more synth-focused mid-tempo number.
The set was kept short and sweet, the band keeping chat largely English-centric and to a minimum (this in comparison to Perfume's 10+ minute chat at their Hammersmith Apollo show!) - the focus, as it should be, on the tunes. And as is so wonderfully often the case with Japanese acts - all done and dusted before 10pm. If only every gig could be like that!
The last few years have seen something of a renaissance for Japanese acts playing on UK shores - and hopefully Scandal, as their Hello World album might imply, are merely the next in a long line opening the doors for more to follow. With the likes of Babymetal and Crossfaith becoming regulars in the pages of Kerrang - for me at least, the hard rock press have acted as a kind of gateway for a lot of this stuff to gain a kind of semi-mainstream legitimacy over here, separate and apart from the otaku appetite that equally fuels a lot of Japanese musical fandom. Scandal fall somewhere inbetween - and perhaps in this sense, they hold the potential to be a fantastic gateway drug for the more casually inclined - with songs as catchy as theirs, the Islington Academy show certainly won't be the last we hear of them...
Scandal's excellent Hello World album is available on iTunes now, via JPU Records. You can also grab a copy of their European-exclusive Greatest Hits comp from Amazon.
[A quick aside on general comfort issues; I've attended some pretty iffy gigs at Islington Academy before and am always a little hesitant about shows there. I've always found it to be stiflingly hot, and too small for the kind of crowds anyone but the most unknown of acts would draw - never pleasant, especially as the downstairs section is standing only and fills out pretty much right to the doors in (people are constantly moving back and forth between these doors and deeper into the venue - always a nightmare when the room is packed to breaking point).]
