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One of a number of new grunge-esque acts springing up around the UK at the moment, it would be churlish to suggest that Japanese Voyeurs have gained much of their media exposure because they have a pin-up female singer… but then you see the way they have dressed her up in the 'Cry Baby' video and begin to wonder. Not that such a cynical concern should affect the band’s live shows, after all this is where a grunge band should come into their muddy best.
Support act Blacklisters are about as far from pin-up as you could possibly imagine, with the local Leeds quartet blasting through a set of aggressive, yet charming, noise rock. Singer Billy Mason-Wood’s excursions into the crowd visibly terrified some of the more inexperience gig goers, but were an important visual addition to the aural chaos erupting from the stage. The likes of recent single 'Swords' are not for the faint hearted but the rewards are plentiful if full throttle noise is your bag.
Japanese Voyeurs took to the stage nearly ten minutes ahead of schedule to a room barely a third full (although they played a larger room than one may expect due to another gig taking place on the smaller stage upstairs). Blasting through their songs with barely a pause for breath, the band sadly gave the impression that they do not particularly want to be in Leeds. A set that barely ran thirty-five minutes, and a rushed thirty-five minutes at that, really is not the sort of thing that is going to take any band into the spotlight they crave unless performed with unbelievable showmanship and/or energy. Japanese Voyeurs did not particularly display either. Instead they were tepid at best; the distorted guitars backed by a solid but unspectacular rhythm section and a keyboardist who is either inaudible or unnecessary (or perhaps both).
It really hurts to have to write such words but, in comparison to both their records and previous live performances, this gig really was a damp squib for Japanese Voyeurs. Lovely people they may be but Leeds definitely did not catch them at anything like their best, which is extraordinarily disappointing. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.
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