I arrived at the PNE Forum just before 6:30 and the line was already wrapping around the building. Inside, it was already filling fast. What caught my eye immediately was the crowd itself: a significant portion of the GA floor was dressed in neon tracksuits, bowl-cut wigs, and mullet extensions. The venue had become a vibrant, interactive cosplay event before a single note had been played. Those who weren't in costume were wearing Electric Callboy caps or shirts fresh off the merch booth. The energy was already at a simmer.
Kicking off the Tanzwut tour was New York's Scene Queen, armed with her self-made "Bimbocore" and a set of "Bimbros" behind her. She played hits from her debut full-length, Hot Singles in Your Area including "Mutual Masturbation" and "18+", the latter arriving with its iconic opening message from her lawyer, alongside older cuts like "Barbie and Ken", which was missing its usual guest Cody from Set it Off, his spot filled by another band member. She acknowledged that she was the most pop artist on the bill and declared it her job to get the crowd twerking, successfully engineering what she called a "Twerkel Pit." She made her first time in Vancouver feel completely natural, moving down to the crowd for high fives and from what I caught a glimpse of after her set, staying near her trailer to chat with fans. A QR code on a banner invited the crowd to vote on whether she keeps her band members. She also debuted an unreleased track set to drop May 8. Even fans who were there primarily for her stayed put after she left the stage. That said something about the room.
Next up was Polaris, a Sydney-based progressive metalcore band making their first Vancouver appearance. The shift in tone was immediate and deliberate. Where Scene Queen had weaponized pop feminism and Electric Callboy would later deliver Euro-club euphoria, Polaris brought the chaos of a deeply personal, technically demanding set. I hadn't heard them before that night. They threw the room into an expansive, ambient journey, the kind that makes you feel the weight of something without being told what it is. In 2023, the band's lead guitarist Ryan Siew passed away at the age of 26. They carried that grief onstage without letting it flatten the performance. Looking around the theatre during their set, it was clear the crowd felt it too.
By the time Electric Callboy took the stage, the room felt like it was on the edge of something. The band appeared behind a massive backdrop screen featuring their signature robot, and the production that followed was a full theatrical and cinematic undertaking. Costume changes divided the set into distinct acts, each one a complete visual reset, neon, confetti streamers, and a light show that treated the venue like a sensory environment rather than just a stage. Songs like "Hypa Hypa", "We Got the Moves", and "Pump It" kept a near-constant flow of crowd surfers moving to the front. A mid-set DJ segment under the moniker "Electric Bassboy" sliced through classic metal, pop, and rock tracks with irreverent precision. The band has been on the road since late 2025, a run through Europe and the UK before crossing into North America and will continue into late 2026 with an arena tour through Japan and Australia, supported by Ice Nine Kills and coldrain.
Near the end of the night, the band physically left the main stage and set up on the concrete floor among the crowd. Surrounded intimately by fans, they performed a stripped-down piano-and-acoustic rendition of their Cascada/Maggie Reilly cover, "Everytime We Touch", before erupting back into the heavy techno version. The encore opened with "RATATATA" their collaboration with BABYMETAL, projected on the screen singing along, followed by "Spaceman", and closed with "We Got the Moves" in a final explosion of streamers, lasers, and synchronized crowd jumping.
Near the end of the set, Electric Callboy went back in time, older tracks with older artwork on the screen and even those who had only recently found the band felt a flicker of something nostalgic. The bill as a whole was put together with genuine care. An Australian progressive metalcore band processing grief. A bubblegum-pink hyperpop-metal artist singing about BDSM. A German techno-schlager-metalcore headliner in mullets. A decade ago this lineup would have been met with hostility by metal purists. On April 25, 2026, it sold out a 4,000-capacity exhibition hall in Vancouver. The audience at the PNE Forum moved seamlessly from Scene Queen into Polaris into Electric Callboy. I'm glad to be here for it.