Peelander-Z at Turf Club, St Paul (June 3, 2025)

Tour Dates

It was a We Heart Music favorite, with Peelander-Z coming to town to perform their amazing live show at St. Paul’s Turf Club.

DJ Henry opened things with the traditional set up at Turf, about halfway in the venue, opposite of the bar. A good mix of older rock & roll kept the mood lively as we prepared for the headliner. I will likely look at a few of the nearly 250 “record roulette club” session at mix cloud that DJ Harvey has curated.

Peelander Z is a Japanese punk rock band currently based in Austin, Texas. They formed in the late 1990’s and have been at it since, with lead singer Kengo Hioki being the charismatic center of the band. This is a band that has an intricate back story that also plays out on stage. Coming from “the Z area of Planet Peelander”, the members are in costume of the color based on their names (Peelander-Yellow, Peelander-Green, etc.). They have been quite prolific with a dozen albums and heavy touring performance schedule. Their shows are knows for a wide variety of audience bits, so I was curious to see what they would do here.

We got the shortest of songs, with the lyrics “where’s my bike?”, before saying good night and leaving the stage. Obviously, most of the crowd knew the bit, but it was an impressive amount of time that they were off stage before kicking off a pre-recorded bit with the background of Peelander-Z “landing on Earth”. Coming back on stage in full costume, the band was absolutely ridiculous in the best possible way. The song P-Burger absolutely set the tone for silliness and expected audience participation, with hand claps and on the next song, tiger claws. These guys were over the top and it was infectious. An audience member was brought on stage for warm ups, and you could tell this was just the start. It was unsurprising the the front of the stage was quickly packed with audience members.

I am unsure that I can relay the sheer insanity of everything that was going on. We were still in Mad Tiger when percussion instruments were handed out to everyone in the front row when the band jumped down into the audience and did limbo across the whole main area. The amount and variety of things they were pulling off while still playing songs is outrageous. Peelander-Pink played a recorder or flute for a an audience involved version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and it was just as insane as it sounds. And all of that still was under the Mad Tiger song? Peelander-Tiger kept the crowd amped up and each band member was just as involved in involving the audience as they were in playing the songs. All things ceased to make sense, even as the audience dutifully turned in their percussion instruments at the front of the stage.

We moved from burgers to tacos? Another seemingly short song turned into a longer bit, and those bits with the audience grew increasingly silly. Armadillo had the audience actually and truly crowd surfing bassist Peelander-Tiger, in a move I have never seen before in that particular way. So Many Mike was a silly throw away song that let the band actually play and sing (and rest!) for a moment. We finally got some banter and it was equally silly, with a, “We’re crazy? You’re the ones here on a Tuesday night!”.

See You Gator, with arm motions of a chomp, followed. This band may be the very definition of “you had to be there”. The energy was off the charts and I can’t imagine how you could do this night after night. Ninja High School was, well, you can imagine, it was completely silly. Asked how we like our steak, the only acceptable answer (also on a sign) was “medium rare”, followed by an instrumental with a true punk vibe. Peelander-Z had the crowd in their hands and doing anything they wanted, which is just a brilliant place for a performance to be. We got audience members getting to play all the instruments while they set up human bowling and Peelander-Yellow knocking down all the pins. A crowd surfing for an audience member went off without a hitch, and we got the cover of Girls Just Want to Have Fun. A final thank you to the crowd had the crowd cheering mightily for the out-of-worlders, and a very happy audience milled around with merch and autographs as the night ended. Peelander-Z promised to return, and we’ll be waiting.