Justin’s Japan: The GazettE and BABYMETAL

By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Shukan NY Seikatsu. Visit his Examiner.com Japanese culture page here for related stories.Located in the heart of Times Square, the PlayStation Theater will host two popular Japanese rock acts later this spring.Making their NYC debut April 29 are the GazettE, a Kanagawa-based rock quintet that follows in the footsteps of other Gotham-conquering visual kei acts like X Japan and L’Arc~en~Ciel. Formed in 2002, the band has performed in Europe multiple times since 2007, and will headline its first shows in America this spring in support of its latest album, 2015’s Dogma.The band’s biggest world tour to date kicks off in Mexico City April 15, and will take them to a total of 11 countries outside of Japan, including stops in Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the States. Still completely self-produced, the GazettE continue moving forward, uncompromised in their artistic and unique worldview at home and abroad.May 4 brings the return of BABYMETAL, a trio of teenage girls who perform a fusion of metal and idol music dubbed kawaii (cute) metal. After playing to a capacity crowd at Hammerstein Ballroom in 2014, the group returns to support its second album “Metal Resistance,” which will be released in Japan and several English-speaking territories in April. After playing venues like the Tokyo Dome and Wembley Arena in London, BABYMETAL is poised to become one of the biggest (and widely known abroad) musical acts in Japan today.For more information, visit www.playstationtheater.com.