Accept grabbed Tokyo by the balls
This is what heavy metal is all about. Accept grabbed Tokyo by the balls, ripped out its metal heart and delivered a heavy metal show as fast as a shark.
Accept at LINE Cube, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan on 13th May 2025
Accept kicked off the Tokyo show with “The Reckoning” and followed it with “Humanoid”. It was not a coincidence that this veteran band started the show with two newer songs. Accept is still able to not only perform the old classics, but it is a band that can still write and perform terrific new music.
While it has been eight years since Accept last played in Tokyo (read our review here), I saw them as recently as August last year during their European festival run when they had Whitesnake’s Joel Hoekstra filling in on guitar (review here and Joel interview here). The band has released two studio albums since the last time they played in Japan. Thus, the Tokyo audience was hungry and ready, perhaps even restless and wild for an evening of Accept-style proper metal.
As usual, guitarist and band leader Wolf Hoffmann was on fire throughout the show. He was joined on stage by vocalist Mark Tornillo, Uwe Lulis and Philip Shouse on guitars, Martin Motnik on bass and Christopher Williams on drums. It is an excellent version of the band.
The thick sound of having three guitarists fits this music very well. And the visual effect of having three Flying V-playing guitarists making coordinated stage moves is stunning.
Yes, we got some of the old classics, including excellent versions of “Restless and Wild”, “Princess of the Dawn”, “Fast as a Shark”, “Midnight Mover” and “Metal Heart”. But the great setlist featured plenty of newer material, including splendid songs such as “Straight Up Jack”, “Dying Breed”, “The Abyss”, “Teutonic Terror”, “Zombie Apocalypse” and “Pandemic”.
I was pleased to find the 1983 classic “London Leatherboys” in the setlist. What a cracker of a song that is! The band finished a fine evening of heavy metal with “Balls to the Wall” and “I’m a Rebel”.
I wrote it eight years ago. I am doing it again: This is how it’s done. Heavy metal done properly with a heavy and steady rhythm section, an excessive dose of guitars, heaps of energy, a proper metal voice and a song catalogue to die for. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: Accept!
https://www.acceptworldwide.com
