Toronto got a strange and pretty great bill on September 7. Three bands, three completely different ideas about what a metal show should sound like.
VIOLENT VIRA started the night with the darkest sound of the three. Most of their set came from their debut album “Lover of a Ghost”, released less than a year ago, in November 2025. They played “Burn Me With a Bible”, “False Reaction”, “Eat”, “Missing Posters”, “Trap Nest”, “Saccharine” and “I Don’t Care”, moving between heavier guitar-driven passages and quieter, more restrained moments, beautifully contrasted with Amy Gonzalez's clean, tender vocals. The band came on, established its mood quickly and kept the set focused.
Halestorm changed the atmosphere almost immediately. Their set combined established songs with material from Everest, beginning with “Fallen Star", “Love Bites (So Do I)” and “Freak Like Me”. “can u see me in the dark?” followed before the band moved into Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, then continued with “Rain Your Blood on Me”, “Darkness Always Wins” and “Amen”.
The performance was built around Lzzy Hale’s vocals and guitar, backed by the full live band, with the newer material given the same attention as the older songs. By the time Halestorm reached “I Miss the Misery”, the evening had already moved a long way from VIOLENT VIRA’s darker opening set.
After VIOLENT VIRA and Halestorm, the headliners of the evening took the stage. At this point, Babymetal's mix of metal, pop, electronic music and tightly coordinated choreography hardly needs an introduction, but the balance between those elements has changed a lot over the years. So has the range of artists they work with. The current version of BABYMETAL sounds less tied to any one formula, and the 2026 tour reflects that, with a strong focus on METAL FORTH while still leaving plenty of space for older songs.
They opened with “BABYMETAL DEATH”, then moved through “from me to u”, “Megitsune” and “Song 3”, followed by “KxAxWxAxIxI”, “Sunset Kiss”, “Monochrome” and “Algorism”. Toronto got “Algorism” instead of “Syncopation”, which had been played at the previous shows in Denver, Chicago and Noblesville.
The newer songs also showed how far apart BABYMETAL’s different directions can now sit. “Song 3”, made with Slaughter to Prevail, pushed the set into much heavier territory. “Sunset Kiss”, with Polyphia, went somewhere completely different. “Monochrome” changed the mood again, while “Algorism” leaned further into the electronic side of METAL FORTH. More importantly, none of them felt like the same basic BABYMETAL song with a different guest attached.
Before “METALI!!”, the Kami Band got a section of their own with a series of solos. It gave the musicians a chance to step forward for a few minutes and shifted some of the attention away from the choreography and exceptional vocal performance to their musical mastery. The guitars were especially prominent here, and once “METALI!!” kicked in, the song hit considerably harder live than its playful character might suggest.
The middle of the show jumped between very different periods of the band. “Iine!” brought back the unique, playful genre-hopping of early BABYMETAL, then “RATATATA”, their collaboration with Electric Callboy, pulled the set straight into their newer sound. “Gimme Chocolate!!” followed, taking things back again to one of the songs most closely associated with their early breakthrough. Hearing those three almost back to back made the changes in the band’s sound pretty obvious without anyone needing to explain them.
The floor stayed busy for most of the show. Crowd surfers kept appearing overhead on their way toward the barricade, and there was almost constant movement further back. Naturally, the heavier songs pushed things up, but the energy never disappeared between them.
The visual side of the show was polished, but it did not feel like the staging was there simply to compete with the music. SU-METAL, MOAMETAL and MOMOMETAL moved through the choreography with remarkable precision, while the vocals never once slipped or even wavered, and the Kami band provided the live instrumental foundation. And because the production changed with the music rather than flattening everything into the same spectacle, songs as different as “Monochrome”, “RATATATA” and “METALI!!” still felt organic.
“Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!” took the concert into its final stretch, with “Road of Resistance” closing the night. By then the set had moved through new METAL FORTH material, collaborations, early songs and a full instrumental showcase without feeling like a checklist of different eras.
BABYMETAL is no longer a band that can be summed up by the contrast between cute pop melodies and heavy guitars, if they ever really could be. The sound has become broader, heavier in places and extraordinary in others. But onstage, the things that made BABYMETAL instantly recognizable in the first place are still very much there.
