ATARASHII GAKKO! Bring Their Massive Energy to LA's The Roxy
This past Thursday night, J-pop band and 88rising signees ATARASHII GAKKO! (aka Atarashii Gakkou no Leaders, in their homeland of Japan) and Anime Author/DJ DJ Jun Inagawa brought down the legendary Roxy Theater in West Hollywood. Please read on for our full recap of the night, as well as a photo gallery below.
Immediately as I entered the room I was hit with one of the bigger pre-concert anticipation vibe walls that I have felt in several months. The room was packed before the opener even took the stage! The curtain was rolled back and our opener DJ was revealed. DJ Jun Inagawa’s set from pretty much from the beginning had the vibe of a Zoomer Bar/Bat Mitzvah DJ. Playing remixes of Daft Punk and The Chemical Brothers along with songs like New Order’s Blue Monday, Lip Inc’s. Funky Town, and Dead Or Alive’s You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).
Besides some random turntable malfunction stopping his set for a couple minutes in the middle of it, this was the perfect vibe to open this showbill with. Now I had no idea what was going to happen next as I am pretty inexperienced when it comes to J-pop, especially in a live context (my only prior J-pop experience was stumbling onto Perfume’s incredible set at Coachella 2019). The curtains parted to four Japanese 20 year olds in stylized schoolgirl outfits with an intense amount of energy and the energy never came down. Song after song they had these amazing choreography routines which the crowd fucking at up!! Now the language barrier stopped me from knowing what they were singing about but from the choreography it felt like there were enough clues in there to kinda make sense of things or at the least just kept me absorbed long enough that I did not notice that I had no clue what these emotions were about.
Keep an eye out for this band with their talent and connections you will hopefully be seeing a lot more of them in the years to come. As we patiently await their next release, please check out a few of our pictures below of the night.
Like what you read? Follow our social media and playlist for the latest in independent music:
