A three-and-a-half-minute Japanese TV report on BABYMETAL‘s recent North American shows can be seen below.
BABYMETAL will play a special one-off show in New York City on November 4 at the Hammerstein Ballroom (located at 311 West 34th Street).
Established in 2010, BABYMETAL is the offshoot of the Japanese pop idol group SAKURA GAKUIN that performs a distinctly Japanese mix of schoolgirl J-pop and heavy metal.
The band played its first-ever U.S. show on July 27 at the sold-out Fonda Theatre (capacity: 1,200) in Los Angeles, California and supported pop superstar Lady Gaga on five American concerts.
BABYMETAL‘s members — Suzuka Nakamoto (a.k.a. Su-Metal, who handles vocals and dancing), Yui Mizuno (a.k.a. Yuimetal) and Moa Kikuchi (a.k.a. Moametal), the latter of whom both scream and dance — admit that they had never listened to metal before joining the group. The girls wear gothy schoolgirl costumes, do choreographed dance routines and bang their heads violently.
“I didn’t even know what metal was all about before this,” says Nakamoto, who, at 16, is the oldest member of the group.
“When they told me I’d be doing BABYMETAL, I listened to this music and its heavy drums. I thought it was interesting and I imagined the choreography I would do.”
BABYMETAL is based on the theme of “Kawaii Metal”. After releasing their music video for “Doki Doki Morning” in 2011 to worldwide acclaim (and shock!), BABYMETAL performed at the Tokyo Idol festival later the same year. In March 2012, they released a collaboration single “II Ne!” with Kiba of AKIBA, followed by “Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!” in July, 2012. BABYMETAL made their first overseas performance at Anime Festival Asia Singapore in November 2012.
In January 2013, BABYMETAL released their major-label debut single, “Ijime, Dame, Zettai” (“No more bullying”) via Toy’s Factory, and achieved the #6 spot on Oricon’s singles chart. Later in 2013, they released their follow-up single “Megitsune” and began their “Death Match Tour 2013”, accompanied by a live metal band and performing at several music festivals, including Metrock, Rock In Japan, and Anime Festival Indonesia. In October 2013, BABYMETAL was a featured performer at Japan’s metal festival Loud Park, and they released the three-concert Blu-ray “Live -Legend I, D, Z Apocalypse” in November 2013. BABYMETAL performed their first solo live show in Singapore in December, 2013.
BABYMETAL‘s self-titled debut album was released in February 2014, achieving the #1 spot on the iTunes Heavy Metal chart in USA, UK, and Canada, and reaching #35 on the iTunes USA total sales chart. BABYMETAL continued to gain worldwide success, becoming the youngest Japanese artist to break into The Billboard 200 chart and reaching #4 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers chart.
In March 2014, BABYMETAL performed two days of solo concerts at Japan’s Nippon Budokan for over 20,000 fans. Their live performance video for “Gimme Choco!” has been viewed over 14 million times, garnering the group major media attention from USA Today, Time magazine, NBC News, Huffington Post, Revolver, Kerrang!, The Guardian and Metal Hammer.
In May, 2014, BABYMETAL announced their first world tour, including appearances in France, Germany, Canada (Heavy Montreal festival with METALLICA and SLAYER), and Great Britain (Sonisphere festival main stage, with METALLICA and IRON MAIDEN). In August, 2014, BABYMETAL performed at Japan’s famed Summer Sonic festival with AVENGED SEVENFOLD, MEGADETH and SUICIDAL TENDENCIES.
Source: Blabbermouth
