Remembering the biggest shows of BABYMETAL’s lives: “We want to do new things that no other Japanese band has done”

It was the moment BABYMETAL had waited for.

“In Japan, we’ve played many big venues, but this is the place I’ve always dreamed of performing at,” SU-METAL told Kerrang! backstage in 2016 as she tried to take in the magnitude of what was about to happen. “Even in Japan, not everyone gets to play here.”

The BABYMETAL star was not indulging in hyperbole: the “here” in question was the legendary venue Tokyo Dome. September 19 and 20 had been designated – by the Fox God and sheer public demand – as the biggest nights of the kawaii metal stars’ lives. Their sold-out two-concert stand was set to welcome 55,000 people a night. The enormity was not lost on them.

“It is definitely a big challenge for young girls of our age to play on that stage,” offered MOAMETAL, just before night one began.

“I’m still in shock,” YUIMETAL admitted, trying to comprehend it.

Her state of shock at the time made total sense. Despite only embarking on their first world tour two years prior, BABYMETAL were now in the same venue that Metallica played in Tokyo on the back of The Black Album.

In truth, however, this massive step up hadn’t been left to chance.

Rewind to the beginning of the year, and BABYMETAL knew they had a tough job on their hands. The initial curiosity that sparked their rapid rise on their debut had waned. Going into their second album, they would be operating without that as a safety net – people now had fixed opinions of them, often for the better and sometimes for worse. To get bigger, they would need to silence the critics labelling them as a gimmick or a novelty. Those types of bands normally implode on the second time around, but BABYMETAL? They had a different plan, and it went by the name of METAL RESISTANCE.

On January 15, 2016, the world first received an important amendment to the global calendar. April Fool’s Day had officially been declared dead.

“As prophesied by the Fox God, a new album will be released on April 1 also known as the Fox Day,” read the statement from BABYMETAL mastermind KOBAMETAL as METAL RESISTANCE was unveiled.

The feeling that April 1 would be no laughing matter only intensified when a new funereal press shot of the trio emerged. Not so much Gimme Chocolate!! as Gimme Your Soul!!, they depicted the group as black-robed wraiths glimpsed from beyond the veil.

The maturity of this vision was mirrored in the new music they had in store. If a brilliant new song like Awadama Fever was still infested with the addictive J-pop melodies of old, there was also a harder edge on display with its electro-tinged intro pitched somewhere between Rammstein and The Prodigy. And even this paled into comparison to the album’s standout track.

Featuring a gargantuan bouncing riff, KARATE offered irrefutable proof that BABYMETAL had made a covenant with the Fox God to go bigger, and heavier.

In his glowing 4/5 review of the album, then-K! Editor James McMahon heralded the track as possessing “a ferocity we’ve never heard from them before”.

Elsewhere, Sis. Anger reached towards icy black metal, Tales Of The Destinies seemed to be beamed directly from the demented musical imagination of Devin Townsend and YAVA! even indulged in a bit of ska. Then there was The One. BABYMETAL’s first track to be recorded in English, it was a six-minute, 27-second song that evolved from spiralling guitar solos into an epic power ballad with pianos and skyward-bound melodies aplenty.

“Few things of brilliance are universally loved,” K!’s review observed, nodding to the fact the band had as many detractors as they did diehard fans praising them for challenging metal’s inertia at the time. “METAL RESISTANCE is a statement of intent as to what metal could be in 2016.”

Straight after its release, BABYMETAL put that theory to the test live. METAL RESISTANCE was precisely one day old when it served up the first of what would be many live milestones. On April 2, the trio played their biggest show outside of Japan at Wembley Arena. Not even the revered likes of X Japan – very much their homeland’s Guns N’ Roses – had managed that feat. BABYMETAL did it in style, their electrifying show taking in a host of new songs and earning a 5/5 review. Hailed as a gig that “transcended language barriers”, it didn’t just thrill its London audience – a livestream broadcast went as far as to show fans watching the event from Japan in real-time in the arena. Oh, and they also broke the venue’s record for merch takings. “The time has come to start taking BABYMETAL seriously,” the review signed off, emphatically.

The charts chimed with this sentiment. In its first week, METAL RESISTANCE entered at Number 15 in the UK – the highest-ever position for a Japanese group. Two months later, they were crowned Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards, and followed that coup with an excellent debut display at Download that proved they could “take shows like this in their stride”. The following month, they would again make headlines by playing with Judas Priest legend Rob Halford at an American awards ceremony, firing out renditions of Painkiller and Breaking The Law.

“When I was told we were going to play with Rob Halford, I couldn’t really believe it,” SU-METAL remembered to Kerrang! later. “Also, I was worried because it was Judas Priest’s songs that we were going to perform, and they were in English, so there were so many things that I had to do for the first time. But when I met Rob, he told me just to relax and enjoy it.”

“I realised that the Metal God is actually really gentle and really kind,” MOAMETAL added. “Before performing with Rob, he gave me a bracelet as a present, and I thought he was really warm. The way he cared about other people was really impressive.”

BABYMETAL were racking up achievements every day by this point, but this was just a warm-up. All roads, ultimately, would lead them to Tokyo Dome.

Nothing about it was low-key. Across two nights – the first christened ‘Red Night’ and the second ‘Black Night’ – BABYMETAL would play to a combined 110,000 fans, with some 1,000 people employed to make sure the shows went off without a hitch. The queues for the merch stands were big enough to fill the venues they used to play in.

When your correspondent chatted to some of the crowd beforehand, the level of zealotry was off the scale. One man, dressed head-to-toe in a skeleton onesie, said bluntly, “BABYMETAL are my existence.” Such was the anticipation of headbanging, meanwhile, upon entering the building each member of the audience was handed a plastic crystal neckbrace to wear – think the exploding collars from Battle Royale and you’ll be close – to aid them during the “battle ahead”.

Truth be told, it was probably needed just to safely take in the size of the production without pulling a muscle. Long before the Red Night officially began, fans gawked in awe at the colossal, circular (and revolving) stage in the middle of the Tokyo Dome that boasted three long coffin-shaped side stages branching out of it. Connected to this central hub was a second-tier stage high above it – accessible to BABYMETAL by elevator! – which also boasted a 360-degree video screen and a crow’s nest. Which also separated into three stages, naturally.

When BABYMETAL emerged at the top of this superstructure, each holding a black flag with their insignia, the crowd entered a state of undiluted, indefatigable ecstasy and excitement. It would last all night.

After descending in the elevator, the trio launched into Metal Resistance’s opening track Road Of Resistance. Pyro. Lasers. Zig-zagging dance moves. More pyro. All came as standard, and even this wasn’t as much of a spectacle as Gimme Chocolate!! giving way to the propulsive strains of KARATE for a killer one-two assault on the senses.

Tales Of The Destinies being played live for the first time ever was another highlight, but it turned out that BABYMETAL had saved the best for last. As set-closer The One began, the crystal accessories wrapped around everyone’s necks suddenly lit up – 55,000 people converted into human lightbulbs.

It all ended with the words “TO BE CONTINUED” displayed on-screen. The question was… How the hell could they top that?

It spoke volumes about the ambition of BABYMETAL that for the Black Night they elected to try something completely different. Before the set began, a video announced, “A melody played once can never be played again.” So it was that BABYMETAL boldly opted not to repeat a single song from the evening before. Even their entrance was different, as they wrong-footed the crowd by appearing from crucifixes that rose from the coffin-shaped runways on the floor, rather than atop the stage like the night prior. What started with an electrifying BABYMETAL DEATH soon took in Awadama Fever, Onedari Daisakusen, Megitsune, with the glowing neckbraces also making a return during closer Ijime, Dame, Zettai. They had the crowd in the palm of their hands the entire time.

“We are BABYMETAL!” SU-METAL declared proudly before the group took the elevator up to the top stage. There she would pound a huge metal gong as sparks erupted, smoke billowed out and the girls disappeared from view.

All that was left were some tantalising, triumphant words displayed on a screen.

“BABYMETAL have set onwards towards their next battle.”

At Tokyo Dome, BABYMETAL took things to a level of sheer spectacle that few could rival.

They would soon go onto other big things in 2017 – supporting Guns N’ Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica among them – but it was those two nights that marked the summit of all summits.

Before 2016 closed, BABYMETAL reflected on the year of METAL RESISTANCE for a special Kerrang! cover story. It covered a lot of ground, including their personal distaste for roaming spirits (“I hate ghosts!” MOAMETAL informed us, “I can’t stand them!”), as well as how they were learning to adjust to fame. Er, kind of…

“I never get noticed if I go out in public,” laughed MOAMETAL. “Actually, I think sometimes I want to be noticed!”

But occupying their minds most was the memory of Tokyo Dome.

“After doing the shows, I thought that BABYMETAL could do more – it’s just a starting point,” beamed a delighted MOAMETAL.

“After doing Tokyo Dome we have to do new things that no other Japanese band has done yet,” added SU-METAL.

“When we performed at Tokyo Dome, we thought, ‘It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,’” agreed YUIMETAL. “I want the next thing to be even bigger.”

Life, however, would have other plans. On October 15, 2017, BABYMETAL performed at the Big Fox Festival in Osaka. Little did anyone suspect it would be YUIMETAL’s final outing with the group before her departure would be made official in 2018. The holy trinity that pulled off METAL RESISTANCE was no more, and a question of what was next loomed, but the legacy they created together could never be undone…

This feature originally appeared in the special-edition Kerrang! Presents BABYMETAL magazine

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