PSYCHO LE CEMU goes Back to Basics on Tour Final

This certainly wasn`t the most visual Psycho le Cému live that I have ever seen, but at the jam-packed 3,000-capacity ZEPP TOKYO, it was every bit as fun!

Initially slated as the final show on their early 2003 tour, the band added a second night (3 Saturday) after the 2 Friday show sold out swiftly some months ago. And how long before these guys start playing Budokan?

Wasting no time whatsoever, Psycho opened the show with the entire band on the stage doing a five-man dance play to uptempo hot pop dance rhythm - a style often used by such bands as SMAP. Lida and seek then picked up their guitar and bass respectively and with DAISHI, drummer Yura, and guitarist AYA still ready to grove with hands and feet flying and swaying, the band ripped through their single off their second major maxi Gekiai Merry-Go-Round, with DAISHI and Yura exchanging vocals.

When the band shelved the pre-recorded drums and guitars and took their respective rock positions one song later, there was no short list of solid hits from which to draw. This concert, like every other Psycho show, kept you moving and twirling your neon glow sticks for a better part of the two hours plus. Oddly, there was no stage design whatsoever. It was an elevated drum kit, marshal stacks, and a light show. And aside form a point where the audience was soaked in streamers, there was nothing else augmenting the music. Not that it even needed it, but with the bizarrity of the whole Psycho le Cému dynamic, one might have expected some extra visual effect weirdness. But again.. the pace of the show was fine save the customary "filler". And by customary filler, I am referring to the segment where the band pre-records a comical play/skit - and then comes out on to the stage a lip-syncs to it. They gesture wildly, slap each other about, and bag big laughs from the fans by belittling one and other. This tour it seemed to fit in quite nicely with the band`s tour image of the "high school student". The punchline centered around getting love-struck Lida to kiss AYA. So when AYA finally convinced him to "close his eyes and pucker", a big, fat, guy in AYA cosplay came out and... who can imagine.

Then there was the long thirty-minute talk session during the encore, when the band clowned about and then said their own words to the audience. But then it was back to the tunes sure enoguh and Psycho played two encores before lowering a movie screen and ending the show with a premiere of their new rock video... that is wonderfully bizarre and to intricate in its imagery to even attempt to describe. But I will say this.. it is their best video yet and these guys should definitely send it to MTV because there is nothing like this in the States.