I'm Retired! Now what?

August 10, 2026

When I launch into a little concert talk with people I meet, I usually have to carry out a quick age check.  If I’m tossing out memories from shows like the Eagles, Billy Joel, or Areosmith I may gain concert respect from some of the grey-haired children of the 1970’s, but from those kiddos who consider Nickelback classic rock, I merely get looks of confusion.   However, there are those time when I throw out a concert where nearly everyone scratches their heads, regardless of their musical maturity.  This is when they all blurt out a robust, “Who?”  Even though I still consider folks like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift to be the new kids of the music world, I like to believe that there is still a little rocker inside me who is, at times, on the cutting edge of music.  And a few weeks ago I took in a show that might support that belief a little bit.  At least this band is on the cutting edge of music in this country.

Nemophila is an all-girl rock band from Japan that one of my co-workers introduced me to a few months ago.  Although these ladies from the land of the rising sun have been screaming their lungs out since 2019, their name doesn’t register with most of the music fans I know.  However, these Japanese metalcore bands of the feminine nature have a sound all their own, and they seem to be getting pretty popular around the world. 

For me, half the fun of going to these shows is just seeing who shows up.  Even though there is some pretty major musical talent blaring from this band, these girls are pretty cute and this leads to their audience being mostly a bunch of guys.  A bunch of guys who seem to have a thing for Asian women who can rock a stage!  And this bunch of guys has an age range that tends to stretch from teenybopper dudes to retired guys like me.

So this summer the Tokyo band made the trip across the Pacific for a little Far East guitar squealing and screaming.  These four little ladies seemed to be thrilled to be playing for a bunch of Americans regardless of our ages.  At least I think they were.  Speaking English seems to be an issue for the band, but they certainly know more English than I know Japanese.  Regardless of the language barrier, Nemophila hit the stage in the small Deep Ellum club, Trees for a wild night, and here’s the review that I posted about the show.

Nemophila plays Trees in Deep Ellum   Dallas, Texas July 11, 2026

Walking through Deep Ellum Saturday evening I was hearing everything from someone’s lame dance mix to a club blasting out Pantera tunes.  But inside Trees was a sound like no other, at least in north Texas anyway.  The hard rockin’ band Nemophila had made the hop over from Tokyo to enlighten Big D with a little Asian Metalcore.  The weird thing about being a fan of these all-girl Japanese bands is the fact that I’m starting to see the same folks from show to show.  Some dude I was standing in line with recognized me from the Lovebites show, and I saw some guy I met at the last Hanabie concert.  Yea, it’s mostly guys at these shows.  Who would have thought?

Before the girls from Japan could take the stage, Dreadland came on with a stage presence that was pretty crazy!  Dressed in masks, makeup, handcuffs, and what might be considered a dress by some, the four guys delivered a show that would probably freak out my parents and scare small children…or most children.  You’ve got to love that kind of devotion to character (or be scared of it).  The guitar player delivered some pretty impressive licks, and I’m just hoping the singer was packing plenty of throat lozenges because his death core screams made my throat hurt.  The next band, Islander threw a sound at us that was a little rap, a little metal, and maybe even a little reggae.  The way the bass player’s dreads were hanging down to his waist, I was afraid with all his flailing his hair was going to get caught in his strings.

After the guys had sufficiently screamed their heads off it was time for the ladies to screech out some tunes and squeal a little guitar.  With a couple of stuffed Buc-ee’s stationed on the speakers the quartet took the stage dressed in, well, Buc-ee’s jerseys.  Everyone loves Buc-ee’s!  The girls might have looked like they were off to a Buc-ee’s softball game, but when singer Mayu screeched out the blood curdling yell to start off the song Hoozuki I nearly thought that the stuffed Buc-ee’s might just come to life and run for their lives!  I doubt if this young lady tips the scales at much more than 100 pounds, but her voice is huge and might still be ringing throughout Deep Ellum!

The girl would start out some songs with mellow vibes, letting us know that she was packing a pretty amazing voice, not to mention a few cool dance moves, then she’d send her long, dark locks flying through the air as she launched into full screamo, death metal!  She wasn’t the only one screaming from the stage though, and guitarist Hazuki would cut loose a few screams from her guitar while shining out a huge smile.  Bassist Haraguchi-san seemed to be all smiles for the night as well, as if Hazuki and her were saying, “We’ll leave the screaming to our singer.  We’re having a blast!”

All four ladies on stage bid everyone a welcome while struggling with English, but they all put forth a great effort, and I’ll admire them for that.  A couple of times Mayu just gave up and had her phone interpret her Japanese into English.  Somewhere during the show the crowd started chanting something, and Mayu shot a glance to Haraguchi-san in question.  They just both smiled and shrugged their shoulders.  I was with the girls on that one.  I didn’t know what the chants were either.  However, everyone in the place found a common language in squealing guitar, drum solos and screams!  Because let’s be honest, no one can understand screamo music anyway so who really cares what language is coming from the stage.

With her hair drenched in water Maya stomped around the stage, nearly coming out of her Buc-ee’s shirt while leading the crowd into wild screams of their own.  Not only did a few crowd surfers come over my head, but the two guys in front of me were jumping up and down so much I felt like I should have been wearing steel toed shoes.  Of course, the crowd was about 99% guys so we can live with a few bruises here and there.  After screaming out eighteen wild songs Mayu’s voice was still intact and the stuffed Buc-ee’s had survived as well.  As for the crowd?  I’ll see you all at the Baby Metal concert in September.