GARDEN: 24th February 2020

GIG: Babymetal (London)

Our fourth visit to the legendary Hammersmith Odeon (now called the Eventim Apollo), but our first time here since way back in 2005 (when we saw Nightwish). Having bought tickets to the show we were subsequently somewhat disappointed in the latest album (Metal Galaxy), feeling it contained rather a lot of sub-par material and very few genuine 'winners'. Subsequently seeing the prospective setlist for the tour did little to assuage the feeling that we'd caught the band a year or two too late either....

So heading out (on a Sunday evening no less!) we were a bit unenthusiastic about the prospect of a late night and while it ended up actually being perhaps 'better than expected' it certainly wasn't the epic show we'd perhaps once imagined it might be.

Arriving at the venue and seeing the legendary frontage (see the back of the 'No Sleep til Hammersmith') album cover with the words 'BABY METAL sold out' was quite cool, although for the sake of a good view I was hoping maybe it wouldn't be sold out... but there we are. Passing into the foyer we checked out the (pretty rubbish) merchandise and decided against it before moving on to the main corridor.

Hammersmith is an old cinema (hence the sloping floor) and so you get this traditional corridor with doors leading off into the arena. When we arrived, support act 'Creeper' were still onstage which we were slightly surprised about because we'd read that there was an after-party due to start at 10PM. I think they finally went off about 8:25PM and once the doors cleared a bit we made our way into the venue proper.

We settled about a third of the way down the floor and at 9:00PM the house lights went down and the video screen fired up. After a dramatic intro video the Kami band fired up and then the three girls took the stage for 'Da Da Dance' (one of the less interesting songs on the new album). Thankfully they jumped right in to 'Gimme Chocolate' which put a smile on our faces before descending into mild mediocrity with 'Shanti Shanti Shanti' and utter shite with 'BxMxC'... 

After a bit of a mid set lull, things finally picked up with 'Megitsune' which was good, but not quite the awesomeness I had hoped it might be somehow, from the there the quality of the songs definitely improved, mainly because they were mostly older ones...

Undoubtedly it was partly the venue size and lack of 'intimacy', but it seems like Baby Metal's uber-polished show ultimately works against them in the live setting. There's no spontaneity or engagement, call it 'Metal Spirit' if you like... and it reminded me of Rammstein in a way, that it's a show rather than a gig, and a 'show' you'd only want to see once.

When it was 'good' it was good, it was on par with the Dir En Grey show we saw a few weeks beforehand I would say... but we had expected it to be so much more and it didn't really live up to our expectations. The gig lasted just under one hour and to be honest that was probably a good length as I think they could have started to pall a bit had they gone on for another half an hour.

We are both glad we saw them, but we do kinda wish we had seen them before the new album came out and the set was made up of songs from the first two albums... and actually, it's unusual to say it but it does kinda seem like Baby Metal are actually better on DVD!

VALENTINE'S DAY

SHOPPING: Meadowhall (Sheffield)

A fairly brief visit to Meadowhall today, chiefly to stock up on Hotel Chocolat and to have a look in the TAG Heuer boutique. Nothing exciting to report in there to be honest...

Good journey both ways apart from some nonsense with the signs on the motorway telling us to drive at 20mph because of an on-coming vehicle - there wasn't an on-coming vehicle at all, so I have no idea what the point of that was.

GIG: Dir En Grey (London)

Until the tail end of last year I'd barely heard of 'Dir En Grey', but that all changed when we came across their bizarre and disturbing video for the 2003 song 'Obscure'...

From there it was but a short step to the 2018 album 'The Insulated World' and very quickly to buying tickets to see them play to a sell out crowd at the Islington Assembly Hall (somewhere we've never been before).

We knew they were playing the new album in full, plus the new single and a couple of other tracks so we were able to concentrate on listening to what we knew we were going to hear. That was very helpful because easy listening Dir En Grey are not. Strangely though, once you listen to it a while, it seems to click - particularly the new album, which is a bit catchier than some of their albums.

Unusually Dir En Grey did not have a support band, and we managed to find out that they would come onstage at 8:30pm, so we arrived about 7:50pm and scoped out the merchandise before finding a good place to stand.

The crowd was a mixed bunch to say the least, and included at least one transvestite and a few bath dodgers... Dir En Grey obviously attracts all sorts of people, and I can well imagine they are some of these people's 'favourite' band. They are a bit like Meshuggah in that the people who like them seem to really like them, perhaps because you have to invest in them to even 'get it'...

Their performance, or rather Kyo's performance because it is him you end up watching the whole time, is intense and somewhat overwrought but effective at the same time. They also have a video screen which is quite cool, it's content quite effective although here it is placed too low and obscured by the drums quite a bit.

Seeing Dir En Grey isn't cheap, £46 each indeed... but this was better than every gig I saw last year so I won't grumble too much and the Islington Assembly Hall is a cracking venue too. Unfortunately we missed the 10:24pm train so we had to wait for the 11:05pm which meant we didn't get home until about 1:10am...