Reading the Facebook comments whenever Babymetal are mentioned is something of a guilty pleasure, I must admit!!

It seems to me most of the 'hate' is from American metal 'elitists' and it never fails to make me smile how three teenage girls from Japan can generate so much anger and hate, especially when the "real" metal bands they say are so much better are almost always mind-numbingly generic and formulaic.

Just the two younger girls singing, Moa & Yui, is known as 'Black Babymetal' apparantly.

For anyone else going to Wembley, try get there relatively early - ESPECIALLY if you want merch.

People have started queueing for this since yesterday lunch time and by 7pm last night it actually started getting a bit of length to it judging by photos, so god knows what it will look like by 6:40 tonight when doors open.

I only discovered Babymetal literally just before the new album came out, so I haven't listened to much of their older material, but I'm seriously enjoying Metal Resistance. Genuinely good stuff, and made at such a high standard; I can see this becoming a milestone album for the genre. I won't disagree that "Meta Taro" is a bit of a dud track though.

The most exciting thing to me is that the girls are only going to get better and better as they mature, and the band is already superb. They've hooked me in, and I shall be eagerly following their progress in the future.

I must be weird then, I like that song as in, it actually stood out to me. Reminds me of Nordland era Bathory

Back from Wembley.

The Good:
- All the girls were on FIRE, especially Su-Metal, when it came to her solo songs (Akatsuki and Amore) she completely owned the stage.

- Songs I hated on record (Meta Taro and Yava!) turned out to be some of the best of the night.

- The One is officially the best live track of all time, when they beamed the Japan audience in on the big screens and it became a dual-country sing-a-long, it was so amazing.

- The musicians were all on fine form.

The Bad:
- Notable set omissions. No "From Dusk Til Dawn", no "Tales of the Destinies", no "Onedari Daisakusen", and worst of all... NO "HEAD BANGYA!!"

- A bit too much backing track in places.

- Nowhere near sold out, there was soooo much free space at the back it was ridiculous

Yes, I notice that a lot online. It's weird, they get so elite about 'their' genre. I actually like very few US bands. As you say, so many of them sound very generic.

There are metal bands I can't stand, but I just don't listen to them. The genre whiners and metal elitists are some of the most boring people on the planet.

Ha, that sounds so cool! Wish I was there.

I would have loved to have been there but circumstances was difficult for me. I'm going to see Muse in Dublin on Monday so was just too expensive to do both.

Even though it wasn't sold out did the crowd add to the atmosphere anyway?

When you say backing track was that for instruments or vocal?

No Headbangya? there are 2 stand out tracks on Babymetal - Gimme Chocolate and that song - not to do that is just bizarre.

Did they play Sis Anger - I'm kinda obsesses with that one at the moment.

The crowd were very loud and energetic - lots of balloons flying around and people just generally having a great time, I've never really referred to something as having an "electric" atmosphere before, but like I said, "The One" definitely deserves that description, I've been to many a gig, but the atmosphere at that point and the 2 crowds getting fully into it was completely unreal, like nothing I've ever experienced at any gig before it.

As for the backing tracks - I'm mainly talking about the dubstep notes and all the keyboard sections, but also - most disappointingly of all - a good majority of Yui and Moa's vocals were backing track, you could just tell it wasn't live, it was bizarre how they were somehow completely note perfect while Su was a bit more "natural".

Totally agreed on Headbangya being a stand out track, was completely gutted they didn't play it

The setlist was:
Babymetal DEATH, Awadama Fever, Iine!, YAVA!, Akatsuki, GJ!, Catch Me If You Can, Doki Doki Morning, Meta Taro, 4no Uta, Amore, Megitsune, KARATE, Ijime Dame Zettai, Gimme Chocolate!!!, The One, Road of Resistance.

Personal highlights were Awadama Fever, YAVA!, Akatsuki, Catch Me If You Can, Meta Taro, Megitsune, IDZ and The One

Was quite dumbfounded though that some of the posters and even t-shirts representing the gig claimed it was "the live debut of Metal Resistance", which obviously implies a full album set, which we sadly didn't get, but still a great show regardless.

Awesome show, loved every minute of it.

Had a great view of the centre podium.

So many highlights I can't even remember them all.

Terrific atmosphere and audience participation.

Loved the part of Catch me if you Can (which is my favourite track from the first album) where the girls were silhouetted against an orange background.

Seeing metalheads leaping around to tracks like Doki Doki Morning.

Yon! Yon!

In "The One", BM now have their "anthemic" number.

I swear Yui smiled right at me during "The One"

Really liked that they alternated songs from the two albums.

It was always likely that some songs (old and new) would be omitted - there's a limit to how long they can sustain the high energy performances they give (we got around an hour 45 I think, which is pretty damn good). The crowd seemed well happy with everything they played, so if different tracks were included, what could be left out?

Really hope that the cameras weren't there just for the beam-back to Japan, and we get a DVD of the show.

Aye, but to be fair, up until this exact concert, Babymetal had performed "Headbangya!!!" at almost every single one of their gigs as either their encore song alongside "Road of Resistance" or as the song immediately before the encore, so it's a pretty important song and it was genuinely surprising it was left out.

As for what could have been left out to make way for Headbangya, I would have to say either "Catch Me If You Can" (nothing against it, I thought it was one of the strong points of the night, because of the stage design like you said), or maybe even "4no Uta" at a push, I get that "Black Babymetal" needed their big song but I thought they could have had that with "GJ!", I don't know many that consider "4no Uta" one of Babymetal's stronger songs.

It's all about opinions I guess, but there were chants of "Yon! Yon!" from the crowds waiting outside for the doors to open, so I think more than a few fans would have been disappointed if they hadn't played 4 No Uta.

I'd have liked them to have played Headbangya as well, but they say it's the sign of a good show if it leaves you wanting more.

Yeah very true, honestly I love all their songs live so I probably would have been disappointed anyway unless they played every song off both their albums

Really hope they come back here soon, they're terrific. Plus it was bizarre seeing a certain Dragonforce guitarist just 2 rows down from me, was hoping he'd join in for Road of Resistance but it didn't happen.

I was half-hoping we'd get a cameo from Li & Totman in RoR. Not that I'm particularly a Dragonforce fan, but it would have been good to have them strut their stuff for that one number. However, the Kami band guitarists are top players anyway, so nothing missed.

I'm sorry, but even with this second release, I still can't "get it".

It's nothing to do with image.
Nothing to do with live performance.
Nothing to do with metal "elitism" (a convenient term for any metal fan who hasn't like nu-metal, djent, Babymetal, or any new metal 'craze')

It's everything to do with the fact I don't think they're musically very good. That is the long and short of it. A song like 'Road of Resistance', which has been praised on here, sounds to me like a rejected Dragonforce B-side. 'The One' is dull and devoid of any emotion.

"But but the backing band! They're so talented!" Sure. All technically amazing players. But again, no soul. The drummer is the absolute worst of all.

In a nutshell, to me, Babymetal are just a very average power-metal band. And once the novelty wears off that is what they will be remembered as.

NB: 'Gimme Chocolate' is at least intentionally hilarious, as is Headbangeeer.

Firstly, Road of Resistance sounds like Dragonforce because it IS Dragonforce. They got the two main song-writers and lead guitarists of Dragonforce in to write and perform the song. As for "The One", I thought it was quite a powerful song on first listen, and even moreso now that I've experienced it live, I dunno, I just thought the way they performed it last night did give it quite a powerful emotional punch.

Agreed that the backing band doesn't necessarily have soul. But to be honest, I can't think of many "shredding" style players that do. To be fair to them, they did do a fantastic solo last night, especially the bassist, I think he's the hidden gem of the whole thing to be honest.

As for them supposedly being remembered as a very average power metal band, no way is that happening. They're introducing a ton of kids (and other general "non-metal" fans) to metal for the first time, so they'll always have a dedicated hardcore fanbase who remembers them as their first metal band from this point on. Sure, they may peak soon and then start to dwindle in popularity, but I don't think they'll ever be regarded as some throw away power metal band.

Do agree that Gimme Chocolate is a bit of a joke, but Headbangya?! How dare you sir

Su doesn't mime afaik, where there is playback she won't even pretend to sing along (like the getting up from falling down bit in Karate). Koba seems reticent to let Moa and Yui sing for some reason, but they do a pretty good job when allowed, check out the Headbangya birthday vids where they take lead vocal.


Yea I missed that too, was hoping for it instead of RoR as the encore, and Onedari (deemed a bit too young for them now apparently).

Good show anyway, even if the sound was a bit off, and the merch queue was insane.

Onedari is deemed too young for them now?! I remember coming out of the Brixton gig thinking that was one of the highlights, so that's absolutely gutting to hear

I knew Su didn't mime and I think her voice is very, very damn good given she's under 20 AND she has to battle against some ridiculous sound engineering (bass and drums drowning out almost everything including her vocals), but she pulls it off beautifully. It's just a shame that 50% of the time, Yui and Moa are both lip synching, and sometimes even they don't bother lip synching as their "vocals" are playing, and it took me right out of the gig. I did enjoy seeing them do Headbangya a few years back though as you say.

Agreed on queues, I will never understand how I've seen many sold out gigs at Wembley, but none of them have had anything close to queues like this, for a gig that wasn't even sold out. It was so disappointing to finally get into the arena at 7, join the merch queue instantly, get right to the front, only to find out they'd ran out of t-shirts no later than 10 minutes after doors opened.

I don't mind people not liking it, thinking they aren't musically very good, music is a subjective thing. I don't like being told "I" only like it because it's a novelty, or craze as in- that's why everyone who likes it likes it. Perhaps some people do like it because they see it as a novelty, but I like it because I do think it's good musically, as you say taste is taste and that's really all there is to it.

A shame yep, but a song about getting money off dad for coming up to 17 year old girls to sing could come across as a bit odd. It was something mentioned in passing on reddit so may be cobblers anyway, they have so many songs now they can't do all the crowd favourites every show.

I'd be very surprised if that was the reason they didn't play it. I don't think the writers care about coming across as a bit odd, actually it often seems like they want to come across that way! And songs like Awadama Fever and Gimmie Chocolate don't exactly have the most grown up lyrics either (still love them though ).

I'd say it's probably more to do with just not being able to fit it in. They wanted to play for a set amount of time and so had to cut out a couple of songs.

In terms of spectacle it certainly lived up to my expectations!

We left home in plenty of time and, unusually, encountered no holdups and, therefore, arrived ridiculously early!! We arrived @ 6pm and, as has already been said there was a ridiculously long queue for the outside Merch stand although we couldn't work out why, as you had to show your ticket to purchase anything, there was an outside merch stand in the first place.

The doors in to the Arena were already open and so, as it was raining, we went inside, hoping to buy merch then. There was a long queue for the merch opposite the entrance so we joined the queue to go upstairs. One of the stewards said if we had tickets for upstairs we could go up to the bar and the merch stand so, obviously, that is what we did!! There was no queue for the merch stand on the first floor but items were limited to purchasing one of each, so we were able to buy t-shirts, etc. On the way out my nephew went to see if there was anything left and he was told every single t-shirt in the venue had been sold. That is Iron Maiden levels of merch sales!!

As for the gig itself I really didn't get the point of Daniel P Carter playing CDs, although the concept of going to watch a DJ play CDs has always passed me by, when they played the likes of AC/DC and Iron Maiden over the PA seemed to get a much larger response!!

Apart from the sound, as has already been mentioned, but the show itself was superb, one of the best I've seen for a while and certainly up there in terms of spectacle with the likes of Iron Maiden, Nightwish, Rammstein, etc. The set-list is always going to be up for debate as everyone has their favourites but I was surprised they didn't play Headbangeeeeerrrrr!

The other thing that will stay with me is the audience, they were incredibly diverse, all ages and musical tastes but everyone seemed to be there just to enjoy themselves and they made the gig as much as Babymetal did..

Sums it all up nicely really, eternally jealous you got hold of t-shirts though, they'd sold out all but extra-extra-large by the time I got inside at around 7:30 Supposedly they broke a record as being the band to sell the most merch at Wembley Arena of all time.

It is rare that having the, ermmm... "Fuller" figure is a benefit!!