L'Arc En Ciel - Indig02 Arena - 11/04/12

< Hyde knew that cursing in Japanese was the perfect retialiation for the guy upstairs who call him a girl.

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As the audience waved around their neon-glow sticks and flaunted around in their Visual Kei orientated dress styles, this is without a doubt the perfect method of bringing two cultures together. Japanese culture coliding with British culture.

The pre-entertainment to the songs being played was in the form of a magnificent video presentation which highlighted tour locations and a video introduction of the band; the latter being a frequently used backdrop in that each song used a different video animation to accompany it, along with extravagent costumes whiched aided the imagery of Visual Kei.

Testsuya trying out his new Japanese rock assault pose >

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L'Arc En Ciel however managed to get the crowd partying through a mixture of on stage dancing and using motion chemistry to relate with the audience, as such the band were cued and orchestrated to time and were in sync with each other all the way through. After all this was the band's 20 year anniversary tour and their first time playing in London.

Irrespective of the language differences - they are singing most in Japanese, they also sing in English and even though there is a language barrier, one you can learn a new language but more importantly for non-Japanese speakers, the music does the talkiing.

The use of pyrotechnics in the elegant form of vertical flamethrowers added another level of dramaticism, yet not exactly another Rammstein theatrical, instead a beautiful production of epic proportions. Mixing a delicate mixture of soft rock and alternative rock with full-on metal songs, falling right behind each other and providing a delinquent sound to the room. Verging onto Industrial Rock and finalising with what is easily dubbed as a Psychedelic show.

Albeit the music, the guitarist has a wicked sense of humour, stating that "I have been London many times, one i wanted to go to London Dungeon, but I had to play golf instead, so now I went Tokyo Dungeon" and that he "bought the bassist a UK pillow, UK-print leggings and a london tube map of his arse, so he dont get lost in London".

It got even worse with him saying "do you want to lick my banana, do you want to lick my lollipop?", he then threw banana into the crowd before launching a boomerang-style throw at the crowd up in the gods.

Also intriguingly the bassist shook his guitar at the speakers to rebound the sound being emitted. He even wore a jacket in the design of the UK flag. Even more so there was an epic drum solo near the end, with lightning as the video backdrop and the penultimate song being a Japanese ballad, enabled the audience to sing along by singing the first part in Japanese (displayed on the LED screen).

All in all this was a concert that the lads will never forget, a truly remarkable showcase of Japanese culture and music, the epitome of Visual kei music.

[8.5] RHYS STEVENSON