Shonen Knife have never been the biggest of bands in their native Japan but in their choice of venues tonight they seem to have grossly underestimated their popularity. The tiny Club Que is like the Black Hole of Calcutta, the queue for the bar stretching twice across the dance floor and a crowd of frustrated ticket-holders crushed into a corner and unable to see as opening act Adel shuffle onstage. As it turns out, they're the lucky ones because Adel aren't much cop. The bass player seems to be in the grip of some kind of seizure for most of it, which is interesting, and there's a hint of a tune in the song (inaccurately in view of their recent reunion) called "Sayonara Pixies" but for the most part they're dull, dull, dull.

Next to hit the stage are Tokyo three-piece the Detroit7, who, despite their difficulties in getting to grips with the fundamentals of geography and mathematics, are better suited to this small stage than they were to the stage of Zepp Tokyo at last October's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club support jaunt. They're fast, loud and tight which is exactly what this pathetically unenthusiastic audience needs, and incredibly sexy singer/guitarist Nabana, looking like she's going to go solo any second, rocks that Pixies/Hole thing with a lot of energy and occasional tunes. For some reason she talks English for most of the time which suggests that the band are more interested in being cool than in being comprehensible to their audience, there are two other people in the band but no-one at the gig was remotely interested.

Shonen Knife arrive onstage in matching Mondrian dresses and kickstart the set with traditional opener "Konnichiwa" which gets everyone jumping and from there they can do pretty much whatever they want. With about ten albums to their name they can play totally different sets every time you see them and still never fail to delight. The songs are all borderline idiotic in their simplicity, their lyrics are total nonsense, none of them can sing and even after playing together for about twenty years they still drift out of time when the kick drum isn't playing but of course that's the point. They make it seem like anyone can be a pop star except that not anyone can write tunes as catchy as "I Am A Cat" and not everyone has the guts and the utter shamelessness required to put cheesy guitar solos in ABSOLUTELY EVERY SONG.

In contrast to the joy and showmanship being displayed onstage, the not-drunk-enough-by-half audience were pathetic and stood in dumb silence every time their weak applause was unable to fill the gap between songs. Nevertheless the band played on and after their final spectacular thrash through "Cobra Versus Mongoose", with about a dozen more false endings than entirely necessary, they don't hang about before coming back for an instrument-free encore of "Chinese Disco" complete with brilliantly under-rehearsed dance routine against a backing tape.

As a footnote though, it might be a point of concern for the Japanese music scene that the most fun and catchy pop/rock band in the country is a group of middle-aged women, but perhaps that's unfair. Any travellers still looking for the fountain of eternal youth might want to start searching in the Osaka area. -Ian Martin, Feb.24.04