I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 21, 2026] Hanabie

I saw Hanabie [花冷え。] a year and a half ago when they opened for Jinjer.  They were great and they blew me away with their heaviness and with their mixture of heavy growls and J-Pop moments.

Hanabie [花冷え。] cpmbines loud and heavy music with Harajuku aesthetics in a style self-described as “Harajuku-core.”  They have been around since 2015 (when they started as a Maximum The Hormone cover band).  They have clean vocals and unclean vocals and the most fascinating thing is that singer Yukina does both!  She can sing in an incredibly high pitched voice and then shifts to a growl that would impress anyone.

Guitarist Matsuri also sings–and has a lovely voice.  She often sings super catchy chorus and bridge parts while Yukina adds to them.  Bassist Hettsu sings too and she has a lovely clean vocal style.  The three of them together are a dynamic force.  Drummer Chika is the newest member (they’ve had several drummers over the years).

Last time I wrote: Their fashion sense was pretty great too.  They were a great opening act and I would absolutely see them again–I hope as a headliner.

And here they were headlining.   They said it was their first time in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia was ready for them!  They had sold out the show and the crowd was 100% into it–pits and crowd surfing galore.

I was right in front of Hettsu (who I have learned designs many of their outfits).  She has a great bass sound–really capturing a great low end.  She also has a mischievous smile and proudly made a point of chugging a beer mid-set.  [Evidently she has been known to start a circle pit around her, but she didn’t do it here].  Matsuri came over to our side a few times.  She doesn’t solo a lot but she can ceratinly shred and her guitar is great.  Chika had a few moments to show off her chops, but mostly she just beta the hell out of the drums.

Yukina is the star of the show.  She runs to all parts of the stage and waves and makes faces at everyone.  She ran to the floor (the photographer’s zone) and high-fived everyone.  And for one of the last songs, she jumped down and got right on the edge of the crowd, singing right over everyone’s heads.

I don’t know the songs all that well (and they sing in Japanese so it’s not clear to me what they’re singing about).  When they opened, they played ten songs and this set was 13.  Six of the songs were the same as last time and the other seven were both new and old.  For the song Spicy Queen, they threw out some inflatable hot peppers into the crowd.

I enjoyed that between songs there was some electronica playing, almost like a palette cleanser before the next onslaught.

They played for a little over an hour–obviously I would have liked more, but I know t hat Yukina’s voice has been giving her trouble (they had to cancel a few gigs because of it), so I’m glad she was able to play for us and to sound so good.

I really wanted to get some merch (it’s really fun), but the line was crazy long (TLA is always chaos for merch).  I’m hopeful it will go on sale once the tour’s over.

My son was supposed to come with me–he saw them with Jinjer, but he got invited to a party yesterday and I told him to go ahead. I suspect Hanabie will be back, especially since they were so successful in Philly.

∇ HOT TOPIC EP (2026)
ß Bucchigirl Tokyo EP (2024)
♥ Reborn Superstar (2023)
⊗ Girl’s Reform Manifest (2021)