Seeing indies bands the level of Psycho le Cému - who sold out 2 shows at the 2,300 seat Shibuya Kokaido this past weekend - makes you realize the futility of 90 percent of all indies acts on the circuit. If you think about it, a visual kei band has a shelf life of maybe two years, three years max. After that time, if they haven't made it and can't at least do a one man at the 1300 Akasaka Blitz, chances are they'll never amount to much if anything. This is what vividly occurred to me as I sat in my 12th row seat last night and turned to look at the thousands of fans yelling and screaming on the two floors of the Kokaido. And it was all for a band that less than two years ago tried to attract fans by giving a free outdoor daytime live in a park - and who looked quite stupid doing so. Now that same band is 3 months away from the visual kei holy grail - going major!

So there I was, the first floor, row 12, seat 49 just two seats from the wall on the right side. I would have been four seats from the wall but the video crew asked me to move over because with height I was blocking their camera view, and the camera set up was not some fly-by-night operation. In total I counted six professional Beta-cam cameramen, two stationary, and four doing hand-held remotes. Pretty impressive!

More impressive still was the Psycho le Cému stage, a Romanesque brick temple design with two huge Ying Yang medallions braced high above the drums and between these four huge connecting brick arches. The drum kit itself was well elevated off the stage on a huge sandy-colored brick dais. On each side of the dais were ramps for the band members. And this was in addition to five flame torch pods, the usual glut of stage light cannons, and an elevating stage platform behind Yura's drum kit. Serious ballgame but odd considering the image of the band is alittle more sci-fi-ish as of late.

The show started promptly at 6:30 with a thundering score of music set against a stage of gushing smoke that slowly revealed the full costumed majesty of Psycho le Cému in their latest tour duds. The 2300 fans burst into cheers and screams and waved their neon glow sticks, one of which was provided free at the door, though nearly everyone brought extra.

As I soon discovered, the itinerary for the evening was anything but that of a standard rock concert. After getting the audience cooking with two blazing dance rock tunes, the band left the stage, the curtain lowered, and an announcement thanked everyone for coming. The girls got in on the gag immediately and started chanting "Encore desu.. Encore desu." The place then went dark and a movie - shot on video - splashed across the screen.

This short movie definitely required a conversational level of Japanese to understand and a real insight into the whole Psycho le Cému character pantheon to get the laughs. Basically the goofiness took place in bassist seek's warehouse office. Each member visits the office one at a time and engages seek in comedy schtick, fighting and silliness - think Saturday Night Live. This movie video went on for at least 15 minutes if not a not more. When it wrapped, the curtain lifted to the thundering of dance pop and Psycho le Cému rose up from under the stage on a huge riser and wearing their outfits from a the Trip to the Arcadia CD (which they also wore for the aforementioned video). The heavy rock pop and pump then continued with their most popular song sei~excalibur~ken. They followed this with several others and then left the stage and we were given the remainder of the video that we had seen the set break before. When the curtain opened it was drummer Yura who came on first and led the way for a 20 minute comedy skit that once again saw the band members matching their characters against each other in voice and physical comedy and incorporating the audience at various points. The entire dialogue for the skit was pre-record and played over the speakers with the band providing lip-sync gesturing. It was kind of like Psycho Le Kabuki. Again, Japanese was required to get the full gist of the sketch.

The comedy routine led into another series of PLC prime cuts of dance rock that had all of us on our feet and celebrating in a manner befitting the whole PLC dynamic. And it was at these moments that I was glad that I had brought my own neon glow sticks  the drum stick-sized ex-large variety in glowing candy-apple red. In hindsight, I can t imagine going to a PLC live and not packing some form of glowing liquid incased in a plastic tube  a thought worth noting and remembering my friends should you ever visit planet Le Cému.

I was actually quite surprised at the volume of non-music based entertainment. After the band performed another set, each member took turns with the microphone and said their piece to the fans. Vocalist Daishi then went on to talk at length about the band s foray into the visual majors. This lasted about 20 minutes at least and I guess deemed necessary, as this was PLC s way of getting personal with the fans. Still, the overall 65/35 percentage of music cut with talk and video comedy clips seemed  to a non-Japanese speaker  a tad extreme. However, I had fun watching all the same. One thing worth mentioning is that despite the band's head-on image/fantasy element in their press material, CDs, and booklets, on stage they rock'n roll just like any other band and keep the character performance to a minimum. Seek - the weirdest looking of the crew - was strutting the stage, doing the lunges, the whole rock motif. He certainly didn't perform as his photographic images might lead to believe he would.

Once the boys picked up their six stringers for the final set the music took center stage again and this time with the added bonus of streamer guns, fire pods, and seek and AYA leaping off the stage and running up the aisles of the Kokaido! For an encore, Psycho le Cemu did a great rendition of their rock ballad REMEMBRANCE and an encore of sei~excalibur~ken. Overall a really fun event and quite physically liberating for me. At smaller events I am always apprehensize about letting loose and showing my enthusiasm - except at Kagerou lives. But in amongst 2300 screaming fans I could turn into an arm waving, glow stick waving, Psycho le Cemu super fan who could cheer, dance, and gesture to the funk rock tunes because nobody cared. I was just wall paper, one of the unmentionable fans.. and I loved it!

Cameron's Score Card (ratings out of 100)

Three costume changes
CD sound quality live
Door present was a glow stick with the band logo on it
A laser show would've have been nice considering the band's image
Great fun fans
The souveniers were awesome (hardcover photobook / CDs / stickers / postcards / signed T-shirt / bags etc.)
Kokaido second level a bit high. Glad I wasn't there
Stage design O.K. but surprising considering the band's sci-fi image as of late