Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, London Shepherds Bush Empire, Tuesday April 29, 2014
There was a point midway through tonight’s gig that summed up the entire experience in a nutshell. The star of the show had left the stage, and in her place was a giant day-glo bunny rabbit leaping about and egging the crowd on like some kind of psychedelic cheerleader. The crowd responded with hollers of sheer delight. I turned to my friend and asked if she was seeing the same thing. She said she was. We both stood there, mouths agape, trying to take it all in. We were powerless to resist. Within minutes, we were both hollering along too.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, born 21 years ago as plain old Kiriko Takemura, is a singer and model from Japan who specialises in relentlessly upbeat electro-pop packaged in a postmodern mish-mash of bright colours and contemporary fashion. She’s an Oriental Lady Gaga, only a lot less desperate for approval than her Western counterpart. Kyary’s breakthrough single, Pon Pon Pon, was a viral sensation when it surfaced on the Internet in 2011. Since then, she has amassed an army of fans worldwide. In her native country, she is bigger than Jesus and regularly plays stadiums but tonight she has downgraded, relatively speaking, to play for a few thousand adoring fans at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
And they are adoring. The crowd is a living, breathing kaleidoscope taken from all walks of life. Japanese businessmen stand next to British teenagers dressed as Pokemon and girls in Gothic Lolita costumes. Kids in death metal t-shirts linger next to Anime barbies and indie nerds. All human life is under one roof waiting for the main event.
There is no support act tonight. It’s all about Kyary. While the crowd awaits their idol, a bizarre, hypnotic music box jingle plays over the PA. The stage is decorated to resemble a small child’s bedroom, all giant toys and building blocks. The crowd chants her name and claps in anticipation. Suddenly, the lights go down and the place goes nuts. Backing dancers who resemble the Crazy 88’s from Kill Bill rush onto the stage. Not long after, Kyary joins them and is greeted with mass screaming from the crowd.
She launches into her first number and we’re off. What follows is 90 minutes of absurdity and happiness as she deploys one bubblegum pop missile after another, leading the crowd in tumultuous celebration like a kawaii pied piper. When Kyary waves her arms, the audience follows suit. When she tells them to jump, they jump. She addresses them in Japanese for almost the entire gig, pausing only to read a few sentences in English from a sheet of paper. She speaks in a high-pitched, rapid-fire staccato that is completely adorable and there is barely any time to pause for breath before we are plunged into another sugar rush of catchy choruses and repetitive beats. All of it is delirious and wonderful. Sights like this were a regular occurrence:
It’s interesting watching Kyary at work. While music pumps from speakers and backing dancers give it their all, her game face is a gentle, genial smile which doesn’t slip once. She performs choreographed dance moves smoothly and without major exertion. She seems unfazed by the whole thing. By contrast, the crowd – easily one of the most enthusiastic I’ve ever been part of – lose their shit en masse at regular intervals.
Kyary and her dancers leave the stage on three occasions, presumably to catch their breath, while the audience is treated to the aforementioned dancing rabbit and later, a surreal short film. All of these breaks are welcome as we’d likely be suffering from some form of fatigue if the onslaught of sound and colour was unrelenting. After an exultant performance of Pon Pon Pon, Kyary returns for an encore in a t-shirt and giant furry animal ears. She performs next to a pink and yellow dancing teddy bear before thanking the crowd and exiting to delirious applause.
It’s easy to be dismissive of Kyary and her music. The whole thing is presented without any trace of self-awareness and could easily be written off as gaudy, one-dimensional fluff, but to do so would be missing the point. There is such an intense joie-de-vivre at work here that it is impossible not to get swept up in the giddy positivity of it all. This is joy distilled down to its most concentrated essence: sounds and images which are designed for the sole purpose of making people sing, dance and smile. It feels like happiness as a form of resistance against the doldrums of everyday life; no cynicism or negativity to be found anywhere. By the end of the gig, we are all lighter in spirit and make our way reluctantly back out into The Real World. Everyone is smiling, and my smile is one of the biggest. Shortly before her last song, Kyary said she will see us again. I hope she is true to her word.
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