POLYSICS (Islington Academy, 09/02/08)

Hyperactive Japanese mentalists in bright orange boiler suits, hi-energy surf-rock melodies and nonsensical Japlish exhortations? Yup, you got to love the Polysics. After enduring Cutting Pink With Knives, the most breathtakingly dire support act I’ve ever seen, the Oriental four-piece had quite the task in winning back over the audience, but thankfully their day-glo pogo punk par excellence swiftly erased memories of the distressing awfulness of their openers. Their live sound isn’t drastically different to their albums, except that everything’s twice as fast, twice as loud and fuck loads more energetic which, you know, is pretty fine by me. New songs sparkled with life, and the oldies got the whole crowd moving and singing along incomprehensibly like no other band I’ve seen since Gogol Bordello. Like most essentially novelty acts, one could argue they lack subtlety and variety but that’d be missing the point- this band’s all about having fun, and in this they succeed with flying colours.