The Bonkurasu Brigade

When I first came to know about this girl band, I didn’t think any good will come out from it. The song didn’t fit the opening scene of the clip in the anime of Gundam 00, while the song itself was so-so, following the roots of normal Jpop music.

Just today, I came across a music video of them in HD, performing “Namida no Mukou”. I want to know how they fare singing on a live performance, so I watched it.

Firstly, a bit of background for StereoPony; the group, which consists of a drummer/background vocals, bassist and guitarist/singer, are from Okinawa, and are currently high schoolers. The trio have hit 2nd in Oricon charts for their new single, “Namida no Mukou”.

Now, back to topic. I wasn’t disappointed with their performance, to be honest. In fact, I thought they’d suck, since I generally don’t have a good impression of girl bands. For a new band breaking into the Jpop scene, performing this well “live” will surely propel them all the way. They practically sound the same as their CD recordings, and their instruments are well played. They deserved hitting 2nd for weekly oricon charts because of that, despite being new to the Jpop scene, although singing for an opening theme song for Gundam 00 would almost surely get any artiste hitting into the oricon charts.

Below are some of the videos of various music shows that they have performed.

Music Japan

Music Station

(HD version available)

CDTV

After viewing their “live” performances, I’d say they are akin to L’arc~en~ciel, since there are many similarities that I find in terms of style. Main vocalist sings and plays the guitar like Hyde; bassist plays more like Ken than Tetsu; the drummer had a bit of yukihiro’s drumming style. I wonder if they are following Laruku’s (short for L’arc~en~ciel) footsteps. Not a bad route, I’d say. They’ve already given me the impression of a ‘female renderation of laruku’ from the videos.

The band also sung an opening theme song for Bleach, too. (Un)fortunately, I have no interest in Bleach.