Wind, Sand and Taiko ... don't mix so well

Perhaps you recall when we last visited Marshall in February for our debut performance (sort of). Thanks to that performance, we were already invited back to Marshall for a second performance. This time, we were invited to perform at the WD Boyce 100th anniversary Historic Camporall (a Boy Scouts of America event) held at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds, in Marshall, MI. 

This visit to Marshall was quite different than our first. We were outside, it was rather cold, very windy and this time there were only three of us performing. Challenges all around us, but we still worked hard and put on a good show.

Notice in the picture above, there is an orange ratchet strap holding the drum on the stand. Normally we would take that off except when moving the drum around on uneven surfaces, but it was so windy that day, we were worried about the drum blowing off the stand. Although that never happened, at two points during the performance, the wind blew strongly enough to move the stand over an inch or so, in spite of the wheels being locked. Needless to say, it was a very windy day and because the sun was usually behind the clouds, it made it that much colder.

Unfortunately the audience was not as large as we hoped for. See picture below:

Yes, it looks small, but actually, this is probably about three times as much as the groups before us had. Well, what can you expect when you have to compete with riflery, archery, rc planes, rock climbing, combat techniques and numerous other events going on simultaneously.  I mean, what would you pick if you were a 12 year old boy? Shooting guns or sitting in cold bleachers listening to music.

As you can see, though, the surroundings were very sandy. Combine that with several dry weeks and a strong wind, and you get a lot of dust blowing around. We tried to avoid it as much as possible, but when I got home with the drums, I had to carefully wipe off all the dust and shake the sand out of the cases before putting them back in their proper places.

We still had a great time and we got to debut a new song, Umi Nari, and Tom got to debut at Odaiko on Raigun, a song which we eventually hope to add all of our members to.

After we finished our performance and packed up, it was on to Fort Wayne, Indiana. This time, we were the ones who got to relax.  We were not performing, but were on our way to see one of North America's premiere taiko ensembles, TaikoProject. 

We enjoyed their concert, (re)generation. It was very well presented and enlightened us about a good deal of taiko history in North America.  I had met TaikoProject's leaders, Bryan Yamami and Masato Baba last summer at Asano's 400th anniversary celebration and it was nice to have a chance to connect with them again. We also had a chance to meet several other members of TaikoProject.  Here we are after the show:

Next time TaikoProject comes out this way on tour, we hope that we can get Michigan on their tour schedule.

TaikoProject's high level inspired us to work hard and keep practicing and Bryan Yamami's Odaiko solo wearing nothing but a fundoshi inspired Tom and I to keep working out.  Don't expect to see either of us in a fundoshi anytime soon, though.

Many more pictures can be seen in our photo gallery.

Raion Taiko in Concert, This Saturday (Feb 20)

February 20th has nearly arrived.  What's so important about February 20th? We are playing a major concert at Marshall Middle School, in Marshall, MI. The organizers are teachers at the school who are in charge of an exchange program between their school and a junior high in Shiga, Japan.  They contacted me ... gosh ... I feel like it was almost a year ago, to see if we'd be interested in doing a fundraising concert for their students. Although we were still in Japan at the time and the only members of our group were me and my wife, I said we'd do it. Now there are five of us and our new members, Tom, Eileen and Larry, have worked hard to learn new music, as well as teach us a few new songs. 

Last weekend we rented a local auditorium to do a run through on our own, with costumes and everything. (see the picture above) and now, we're ready to go. Friday night we'll pack up our drums and after Saturday morning taiko class, we'll head on over to Marshall for the concert.

We even got a write up in the Battle Creek Enquirer today:

Rhythm of the Far East coming to Marshall

If you're interested in coming out to see us, please take a look at the information on our Taiko Performances page.

We hope to see a lot of people there.