The Kellogg Brothers are a fiercely synth-centric foursome in matching military shirts and white eye masks who, through the power of their repetitive pop chanting and synchronised dance maneuvers, cut an enjoyable pop dash through the crowded venue. Vocoders can be overused, but here they are overused to such a staggering degree that one can't help but be impressed, especially when the synth-drumkit and twin mini-korgs are taken into account.

Split Memory Man proudly proclaim themselves to be "Tokyo's last visual band", which is a relief. The knowledge that this kind of crap will soon be over gets me through an introductory number that consists of the riff from "The Final Countdown" by Europe and... err... nothing else. For the rest of the set they prance around in their shiny space costumes, squeezing excruciating squiggly eighties guitar solos out of their protesting instruments and occasionally ripping up porn magazines and throwing them over the audience. I know it sounds cool, but trust me, it's just tiresome. Apart from the thing with the porn magazines.

Super Idol Hino Makoto loves idols. In fact he loves idols so much that he decided to be one. Except he couldn't be one. So he just copies them. In hotpants. On roller skates. Working on the hopeful assumption that his tongue is firmly in his cheek, it's as savage a dissection of the grotesqueries of the pop industry as you could wish for.

A rather more interesting proposition is Frottage. Presumably that's "frottage" (pronounced "fro-tahj") as in the French word meaning "friction" or perhaps as in the art technique involving rubbing over textured surfaces, rather than the obscene public sex act. Still, who knows? Enigmatic name aside, Frottage are eight people tonight (the bass player's busy getting married), of whom only four play instruments. The rest are variously involved in plate-spinning, semaphore, the construction of Gundam model kits, and the creation of Mondrian-style artworks. The music is in a crystal-clear new wave pop stylee that recalls elements of Polysics or XTC, and it is integrated seamlessly into the accompanying performance. Did I mention that they were all wearing white lab coats? Well they were, and very sharp they looked too, with the air of clinical precision going hand in hand with the sense of simplistic dadaistic joy.

Delicious Sweets fail where Frottage succeed, due to the lack of any kind of limiting factors. Nine pretty girls in an ever-cycling sequence of costumes and dance routines may sound like a good idea but on stage it comes over as excessive and overbearing. It's not that we don't get it, it's just that it needs something by way of balance. Frottage matched their performance aspects tightly to the music, and the baton twirling and balloon fighting operated on a very tight rein. Delicious Sweets present us with an endless parade of chirpy chorus line stuff and overblown melodrama, and those in the audience who aren't plain terrified, are at the very least exhausted by it all. At the end of the show they all take off their knickers and hand them out to audience members. Which was generous of them. - Ian Martin, Oct.20.04.