I discovered NEMOPHILA last year (2023), around mid-August, and it quickly became one of my favorite bands. NEMOPHILA is a Japanese Heavy Metal band that was formed in Tokyo in 2019, just before the pandemic.

During the pandemic, the band focused on releasing covers on YouTube, this allowed them to gain an audience without releasing original works. NEMOPHILA's first video on YouTube was a cover of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper":

Several covers later, NEMOPHILA released their first single; "OIRAN" in February 2020.

Since then, they have released 3 albums, the last one, entitled "EVOLVE", released last month.

NEMOPHILA is formed by:

• mayu: vocals
• SAKI: guitars
• 葉月 (HAZUKI): guitars
• ハラグチサン (haraguchisan): bass
• むらたたむ (murata tamu): drums

I arrived at Budokan and went straight to try to buy a band t-shirt. Unfortunately, everything was basically sold out.

At 5:00 pm sharp the Budokan doors were opened and slowly everyone entered, upon presentation of the ticket, of course.

Speaking of tickets, I almost didn't come to this show. Let me explain: here in Japan, most shows use a ticket sales system via lottery, it's basically a lottery. Depending on the show and the band, there is only one sales period for foreigners, and of course, I ended up not paying attention to this and missed the date to enter the lottery. Fortunately, there are some tickets proxy services here in Japan that make the purchase for you as if you were a resident here. It's a bit bureaucratic to get tickets here, sometimes you need to have a Japanese phone number, sometimes you need an address, etc.

Anyway, I entered Budokan:

But... I ended up going to the wrong seat. I noticed that I was in the wrong place because according to the seat numbers I was supposed to be directly in front of the stage.

My seat was on the second floor, directly in front of the stage, a little far away, but I got a wider view of the show as a whole. Far away, it's not ideal for photography, but I didn't have this problem, as a peculiarity of shows in Japan is that, generally, photography and filming are prohibited. And they mean it. During the show there was a guy a few seats on my left taking pictures or filming, some security noticed that and escorted him out. Later he came back.

The show was supposed to start at 6:00 pm, but there was a small delay of about 10 minutes, no big deal.

Then, 10 minutes later, the lights went out and the concert began.

Budokan is a closed arena, and the acoustics were excellent, the sound mixing was a little strange in the first few songs, but it seemed to be resolved soon after. Either that or my ears were bugged.

The concert started with "RISE", whoever was asleep due to the brief delay definitely woke up, followed by "鬼灯 (HOZUKI)", "雷霆 -RAITEI-" and "ZEN". Four fast and aggressive songs.

After a quick break for some announcements, 4 more songs, this time from the new album. "Enigma", "AMA-TE-RAS", "OSKR" and "Justice".

Highlights to "AMA-TE-RAS" and "OSKR", with a lot of interaction from the audience.

Another brief pause and the concert continues with "Waiting for you", a somewhat punk~Green Day-ish style song I dare to say, with catchy and infectious riffs and melodies. I don't know why but I really like the energy of this song. So uplifting!

The concert continued with "Night Flight". Many lasers and lights transformed the environment.

Then came "Style" and the heavy "徒花 -ADABANA-", the guitar solo duel is incredible.

The calm came with "ODYSSEY", but it was short-lived, "Seize the Fate", "Hammer Down", "Sorai", "YELL 〜軌跡〜" and "REVIVE" turned the Budokan into a cauldron again! mayu running on stage during "REVIVE" was epic.

The lights went out and at this point it was clear that the encore was near and the concert was almost over.

The band returned to the stage to play the encore, the last 3 songs of the setlist.

First, "Life", then "DISSENSION" and "OIRAN". A combo worthy of a rollercoaster of emotions.

In total they played 21 songs, about 2 hours of show. Honestly it seemed much less, time flew by too much. It was a blur.

SETLIST:

RISE
鬼灯
雷霆 -RAITEI-
ZEN
Enigma
AMA-TE-RAS
OSKR
Justice
Waiting for you
Night Flight
STYLE
徒花 -ADABANA-
ODYSSEY
Seize the Fate
Hammer Down
SORAI
YELL 〜軌跡〜
REVIVE
Life
DISSENSION
OIRAN

I still can't believe I was there, on such an important event for NEMOPHILA. Budokan is a special place, and for them to reach this milestone in so little time is beyond amazing. It was a huge privilege to witness this incredible concert by an incredible band on an incredible place!

My journey of 35+ hours from Brazil to Japan was totally worth it!

To many more live performances for NEMOPHILA! To many more amazing NEMOPHILA music! 🤘

Cheers!