Friday, July 16, 2010

UK Tour, Day 3: Taiko Audience!

Today was less-insane than yesterday. This was good.

We had a school show for 150 kids today, on the younger side, which went very smoothly. That was followed by a walk into the city to have lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern restaurant. On the way, we got to peek at/inside a very old cathedral that survived bombing by the Nazis.

After that, onto and into the theater for our first of two concerts, this one for 150 taiko-playing fans. We had to make some last-minute changes in dealing with moving drums, but we got it done. One thing I'd forgotten to mention before is that Kagemusha Taiko was creating naname (slanted) stands for us to use. The first "drafts" were too steep of an angle for us, but they made a fix that we were able to use just before the show. Yay!

The show was two 45-minute halves with equal parts talking and playing, followed by a Q&A for 30 minutes at the end. The crowd loved it and we loved the energy they gave us. Can't wait for tomorrow, where we get to watch about a dozen taiko groups from the UK (and one from Germany?) play tomorrow morning and evening (mostly the latter). We have two short 15-minute sets in the morning, but that's pretty easy stuff considering what else we're doing on this tour.

Off to bed while I still have brain cells!

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