Photo by Martin Ben Gross. More on Flickr

Oh, Japan, you’ve given us so much. Sony, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Panasonic, Honda, and Nintendo. Not to mention the countless famous musicians. Who can forget rock favorites L’Arc~en~Ciel (perhaps better known as Raruku an Shieru in their home country) or 90′s pop sensations SMAP? Alright, alright, the number of people in the Midwest that have heard of these bands probably numbers in the dozens.Tokyo band POLYSICS has not shied from the United States however, where they are probably as well known as the next band of hardcore Japanese techno punks. In fact, their current tour marks their third trip to North America in as many years, however their Tuesday show at the Firebird marks their first appearance in St. Louis. The venue was only at about half capacity, but the audience made up for it with an absurd amount of enthusiasm. The young fans made their presence felt with a combination of unprovoked moshing and random screams. But even the crowd’s collective fervor was no match for lead singer Hiroyuki Hayashi’s seemingly boundless spirit. Hayashi rarely spoke to the audience, instead preferring to shout. He often ended sentences in an extended high-pitched scream, to which the audience responded with its own like-minded shrieks.  Honestly, my face hurt at the end of the set from smiling so much. The show was exactly what you’d expect from a band that bills their style as “technicolor pogo punk.” The band wore matching neon orange jumpsuits, complete with matching sneakers and rectangular visor sunglasses. The glasses were so dark that it remained unclear if they actually concealed eyeballs or not. I assume so, but I’m not ruling out the possibility that I actually witnessed an hour-long animatronics show. Throughout the show, Hayashi and bassist Fumi bounced around uncontrollably. Yet, despite their wildness, everything from set opener P! to headliner Electric Surfin’ Go Go was executed with extreme precision.  POLYSICS provided just about everything I needed from a new-wave j-pop punk band on a Tuesday night: audience-wide jumping jacks, a recorder solo, robot vocoder riffs, and unbridled enthusiasm. <(^_^)>

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