ex-girl

It's not very often that I ask myself "Is this happening? Am I REALLY seeing this?" On the night of September 9th, when the Japanese trio Ex-Girl took the stage at the Shim Sham Club in New Orleans, LA, those doubts were the first things to enter my mind. The Girls entered bearing inflatable frogs and wearing costumes whose colors are most often found in the 80's. When they began a choreographed dance routine apparently inspired by robots, they resembled fuchsia, lime, and yellow whirlwinds of energy. After the opening song, Kirilo, Chihiro, and Fuzuki gave a brief speech, telling the audience about their origins on the planet "Kero! Kero!", then seemed to practice idol worship on the inflatable frogs. When eX-Girl eventually resumed playing music, they quickly won the audience over with a combination of heavy rock guitars, bizarre acapella vocals, and catchy, pop synthesizers. The standout song was by far the fittingly quirky cover of 80's one-hit-wonder M's "Pop Musik." eX-Girl's stage presence was an interesting blend of innocent Japanese coquettishness, incredibly quirky B52's-esque weirdness, and rock-vamp sex appeal. How refreshing to see a band achieve the difficult balance between playing live music well and keeping the stage show interesting.