Charlotte invites Babymetal back to Truliant Amphitheater

CHARLOTTE — Babymetal is in its last few weeks of touring in the United States on its Babymetal World Tour 2026. On September 15th, they made a tour stop at Truliant Amphitheater in Charlotte, a much larger venue from the last time they performed in Charlotte just last year at Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre.

While Truliant can hold considerably more people than Skyla, there simply was not enough demand for the show to fill such a large outdoor amphitheater, partly due to the fact the majority of its fan base had to go to school the next morning.

The music this Japanese trio produces is a niche genre of Kawaii metal, a mixture between heavy metal and pop music. Although the venue was not at capacity, Babymetal put on a solid performance for all those in attendance, including for all the dads accompanying their younger children at the show, in which I caught a few bobbing their heads to the beats of the music.

Opening up for Babymetal were Violent Vira and Halestorm. While Violent Vira is newer to the music scene, they put on a great show as the first opener. Halestorm, led by Lzzy Hale, definitely moved the crowd with her raw and raspy vocals. Her stage presence and engagement with the audience kept the energy high as fans awaited Babymetal to take stage.

As the temperatures dropped from the highs of a typical warm mid-September day, Babymetal fans at front stage stood in anticipation awaiting the show to begin. After a few moments of the video board playing an intro, the trio took stage along with their backup band, blinding lights pulsing out towards the crowd from stage front, followed by “Babymetal Death”.

It didn’t take long for the pyro to pop off, with fire shooting off so close by you felt the pulsing heat. While the show itself is full of synchronized dancing along with the synthesized Japanese beats, the girls took time to address the crowd at various times during the show, mostly with a single word, “Charlotte!!!”. That was enough to bring fans to fandom as the next song kicked off.

There was a time during the show that required more crowd participation, as Babymetal instructed everyone to get as low as they could in their seat, followed by instructions to jump up and rock out as the band continued on with their performance. This is really well played for their fan base, but I could tell the older folks, mostly the accompanying dads, didn’t really feel the need to participate and sat that one out. Maybe next year they will be ready!

The show included time set aside for the backing band to show off their talent, including a few guitar and drum solos.

Towards the end of the setlist, the video board displayed “Fu Fu”, with full crowd participation chanting the slogan knowing the song, “Ratatata” was about to begin. If you have not seen Babymetal before, the performance was outstanding, both visually and musically. The band members often synchronized their choreography, even while in full metal mode.

During the last song before the two-song encore, there were at least a dozen giant crowd-surfing Babymetal blowup balls floating around the front of house during the song, “Gimme Chocolate!!”.

The setlist of 14 songs, which included 5 different songs from last year’s setlist, ended with two encore songs, “Headbangeeeeerrrrr” and “Road of Resistance,” which wrapped up the show with full sensory overload with banging beats and pyro lighting up the stage for a final night’s farewell.

Babymetal will continue on their U.S. leg of the tour through the beginning of October, before taking a short break before a few dates in South American in November and December.

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