The only real issue here, according to some of the Pyratrix crew, was that the sword swallower was terribly hungover, so when his lady counterpart removed the sword from his throat, she had to take special care with the angle of withdrawal, lest she trigger the gag reflex. “It can cause him to barf all over the stage, and that’s, well… yeah,” one of the performers told us after the show. “He’s barfed on the stage a few times before, and that’s kind of gross. But we are the Pyratrix Circus, so I guess, yeah… what do you expect?”

But there was no barfing. Pure professionalism there. And if the the Pyratrix Circus had a few technical hitches on its opening night on Friday, they were all worked out and this was, according to the performers, the smoothest and best of their three shows at Fuji Rock.

The hoop spinner, Joe, particularly killed it. It was a tricky feat to be sure, given the small size of the stage, the large size of the hoop, the wet floor from the rain, and the fact that should an extremely heavy steel hoop spin out of control into the audience, it could do some real damage to the punters.

On the whole, this debased steampunk carnival troupe was perhaps one of the most fun things at this year’s Fuji Rock. I particularly loved the sexy dancing DJ twins My Bad Sister, and the whole ensemble of clowns, stilt walkers, jesters, rappers and DJs was a fresh breath of London grime. Let’s hope they’ll revisit us in Naeba before too long.