The miniature Yurikamome Line robot transit system snakes its way between the glass towers and still waters, skyscrapers glittering in the distance as the fall of night triggers the illumination of a million lights. Odaiba, the jewel in the crown of the Tokyo bay land reclamation project, home of the Rainbow Bridge, the Tokyo Big Site exhibition hall, the miniature Statue Of Liberty, the Venus Fort shopping complex, a hyper-modern mecca for both shopping-addicted professional consumers and unimaginative lovers, the symbol of mankind's triumph over both nature and good taste and of his ultimate defeat at the hands of his own soullessness.

The Detroit7 are already thundering away when I arrive and the notoriously catatonic Zepp Tokyo audience is already directing powerful psychic waves of concentrated apathy at them. They have the right idea (i.e. hammer the hell out of the songs and don't give a fuck about anything else) but they're wide of the mark with the implementation. Rock and Roll music is meant to be sexy but they trudge about the stage, hair hanging limply, shoulders stooped like they learned how to rock watching "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure". The nursery-rhyme melodies jar against the fierce rock assault of the music and they exit the stage with high marks for effort but little else beyond a smattering of polite applause.

A slight blip of enthusiasm greets the arrival of The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who immediately launch into "Stop" and then blast their way through most of the highlights of their groundbreaking debut. "Spread Your Love" is a loud, tough and (importantly) incredibly sexy glam-rock glitter-stomp, "Red Eyes And Tears" is sinister (and still very sexy) krautpunk and "Love Burns", already the best opening track to any album ever, is simply awesome live.

The new songs which form the bulk of the set fit in neatly next to the tracks from the previous album thanks largely to their sounding pretty much the same. Nevertheless while the lyrical content of the older songs (sickness=sex=drugs=religion) has been enough for Jason Pearce (Spacemen 3, Spiritualized) to make an entire career, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have added a political edge which gives new songs such as "Generation" an extra bite and suggests promise for further development in the future.

Still, there's something of a war of attrition going on with the audience. While they lap up the rock action happily enough they give almost nothing back. Fluffy haired bass player Robert Turner takes on the dual responsibility of dragging a reaction, kicking and screaming, from the Japanese audience and dealing with the drunk Western fuckwit who keeps yelling an imaginative request for The Jesus And Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" from somewhere within the cavernous recesses of his own arsehole. Guitarist Peter Hayes, meanwhile, concentrates on being moody and introspective, most impressively so on the fragile outro to the blistering "U.S. Government".

A brief audience poll results in "Whatever Happened To My Rock And Roll?" closing the set but the efforts of a determined few bring them back for an encore climaxing with a gorgeous "Salvation" which sounds enough like "Just Like Honey" to satisfy the wankers in the audience, then sweeps straight into "Heart + Soul" and an ear-splitting explosion of spirit-cleansing feedback.

This may have been just a blip in an otherwise flat line but that just proves how necessary bands like The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are. If recent rumours in the NME are true then a forthcoming U.S. tour with The Rapture, The Libertines and The Strokes could see that blip turning into a tsunami. -Ian Martin, Nov.11.03