It’s a pleasant night on Sunset Boulevard as a long sidewalk full of Polysics enthusiast wait to get inside. Some are even dressed in their own orange jumpsuits complete with strait-bar sunglasses. Meanwhile, the normal people come dressed in full Pikachu costumes of course...

At 8:30 the doors open and we’re in. The venue is the historic Roxy Theater. Its stage has seen the likes of Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Bob Marley, and... Meat Loaf. But tonight is special. Tonight the stage belongs to the wacky, frantic, “technicolor pogo punk” music stylings of Polysics. The electricity of anticipation is in the air as the crowd finishes filing in. But it will be another two hours before we see the slightest bit of Polysics orange.

After a little while the first opening band, Black Gold, plays. They are a Coldplay-ish band, only a little more rock influenced. It’s at this time I decide to get a bottle of water from the bar. But I found out that’s not as easy as I had thought. See, if you are under 21, like me, they make you buy a drink ticket for 3 dollars. With this ticket you can get 2 drinks. Sounds fair. A night club has to make money somehow. So I walk up to the bar, ask for a bottle of water, and hand the bartender the ticket. But apparently the tickets are only good for sodas. Hmm, ok then. I pull out my wallet to pay. “That will be $4.50”. Really? For a water? What is this, Disneyland? Ok, so I pull out 4 dollars. But that’s all I’ve got after parking and the drink ticket. She won’t let the 50 cents slide and offers me some tap water in a plastic cup instead. “Oh well, not exactly what I wanted but it will do just fine,” I’m thinking to myself. So I take the water. “That will be 1 dollar.” ...For tap water?!

OK, I understand it has a slice of lime in it, but this is Los Angeles tap water we’re talking about here. Not exactly the freshest water around. So I pay my buck and meander back to the stage. It’s then that I run into Polysics’ road manager, Sean, near one of the backstage doors and I talk with him a moment. As we’re talking, a Japanese photographer comes up and Sean hands her some paperwork. As she walks away Sean yells “Chotto matte!” (Hang on a sec!) and gives her one more piece of paper. I say, in Japanese, “ah, so you speak a little [Japanese]” and he just kind of stares at me. He then explains that he doesn’t know but a few phrases and has to carry around a cheat sheet of common sayings. I imagine this might cause some difficulties when touring the country with a Japanese band.

The curtain on stage lifts once again and the second opening band, IO Echo, starts to play. These guys (and their female lead singer) are a little more hard core than the first band. Their music reminds me of The Dead Kennedys with its weird, delayed, grungy guitar riffs. The female lead singer had dark hair that covered most of her face, and she would often strike a zombie pose and walk like frankenstein. That, accompanied by a nice strobe light, made for a very entertaining performance!

After they were finished, everyone knew what was coming next. The main attraction. Those of us near the stage could hear them setting up through the satin curtain. They would occasionally play a few cords or a synth beat to let us know what was coming.

And then it happened.

The curtain lifts up and the crowd goes insane. But wait, behind the curtain there are no Polysics, just some seemingly abandoned instruments. The crowd settles down for a moment, but then gets even louder in hopes of coaxing them out with noise. Then all of a sudden the road manager, Sean, takes the stage carrying an old iPod. He tells everyone to welcome the band "from another galaxy” as he places the iPod in a dock on the synth, selects a song, and presses play.

The electric beat of “Iron Rocks” starts up. The crowd is increasingly louder. Everyone looks around for possible spots on the stage that the band might pop out of. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of orange. I turn my camera towards it and press the shutter button. And that is the first image you see here. It’s the first moment of the Polysics concert at The Roxy Theater in Hollywood.

One by one they take their places and man their instruments. Kayo gets set at her synth keyboard, Masashi hides behind a massive set of drums at the very back of the stage, Fumi grabs her base and sets up right next to where I am, and the lead signer, Hiro, takes his place center stage.

From there on in things become blurry. Probably because Hiro never stops moving the entire show. Spins, leaps, and jumping-jacks, Hiro does it all. I honestly think he has created the best cardio workout known to man because 2 songs in and he’s already sweating buckets. And he continues to do so the rest of the night. In contrast, the most movement I see out of the robotic Kayo is her swaying from side to side letting her hair wave around during one song. She does a good job acting mechanical. Even when entering/exiting stage she kept her movements very precise.

Their crowd interaction was minimal, but it was just enough to keep everyone happy. Hiro only stopped moving a couple times to address the audience, but even then it was just a short moment of yelling and screaming to rally up some energy from the crowd. Not like he had to try too hard here because enthusiasm was abundant. Twice during the show Hiro approached the audience mashing away cords on his guitar casuing everyone to reach for their Poly-hero, grabbing at his guitar, arms, and even a few of the girls dressed as pokémon latched onto his legs then refused to let go. It was clear that these were true fans. The feeling of everyone in the room singing along to Moog is Love was nothing short of spectacular. And when such favorites as I My Me Mine, Baby Bias, and my personal favorite, Rocket, came up, the audience reaction was, simply put, insane.

The audio quality was not the best though. But hey, that’s the way it goes with live performances. Backup vocals were drowned out, the synth wasn’t very clean, and Kayo’s higher pitch robotic voice sounded a little too high pitched for comfort. But none of that really made any difference. Their energy and talent shone through everything and they gave a spectacular performance.

After they played their main set of 16 songs, they left the stage. Pleadingly, the crowd cheered for them to return so that they could give us all another does of their adrenaline  coated magic music. And they did. Playing 2 more songs including the great Electric Surfin’ Go Go. After that the lights went off. Hiro let his guitar slip off his shoulder and onto the floor, then grabbed a towel for a much needed drying off. The curtain drops and  it’s over.

The large group of Polysics fans spill out into the cool air of Sunset Boulevard. Each satisfied and somehow sweating almost as much as Hiro was. 2 hours had passed in a instant. Slowly the orange jumpsuits, pokémon, and Harajuku girls mix into the crowd of LA hipsters and club-goers, and the night is done.

If there ever was a band to have the energy of multiple incited dogs attacking, it is without a doubt Polysics.