“To EU again"

Dear readers, ”Long time no see.” After about three-month stay in Japan from July 17th we’ve come back to the EU tour. Today we flew from Kansai International airport to Amsterdam and transferred to Vienna, Austria. Now it’s 3:30 a.m. We are really suffering from jet lag. We want to get rid of it soon and gear ourselves up for the concert. Now, good night.

“Position Marking in the rain"

We prepared for the show beginning tomorrow. We are going to perform on the stage floating on the river. Last year we did performance on a lake but this is our first time to perform on the river. We had been afraid that we would get seasick or be floated away but we were relieved to know the stage didn’t roll so much as we had expected

“Concert on a river"

This is the first performance in about three weeks. The show started before dark. The audience and we were able to see each other. When the second part began, it had got dark and a little cold with wind. However it didn’t rain and we were able to give a show to the end.

“Reunion”

Today we had guests. The older son of the Zec, who were very kind to us during our training camp in Graz came to see us with his fiancee. We have met various people in various countries and each meeting was a good memory, but we sometimes feel sorry if the memory ends up as a memory just for the occasion. Therefore we are very pleased to have a talk again with the people we met before. We’d like to see them again and would like them to hope to see us again. The nice reunion gave us more strength. We sincerely hoped to give another good concert today.

“Lunch at the Film Festival”

Now in Vienna Film Festival is being held. I hear a film will be showing at night on the big screen in the park near our hotel. They also perform operas, dances and concerts by turn at the park every day. They open various restaurants from various countries. Good.smell from the restaurants fills the site. We decided to try many kinds of dishes. We ate Chinese fried needles, grilled meat and vegetables on a hot plate by a non-Japanese cook, paella and sausages. We were so satisfied with the food that we weren’t able to try the famous chocolate cake, Sachertorte.

“To Sweden”

It was at nine at night that we arrived at the airport in Stockholm. The sky was still bright and the sunset was beautiful. Unlike usual concerts, we are going to perform at a festival held in Stockholm tomorrow. We are not sure what the events will be like yet, but in any case we’d like to give a lively performance.

“Festival Opening Party”

Today they’ve started “Cultural Festival of Stockholm” and we are participating in the festival tomorrow evening. Today we gave performance at the Festival Opening Party. At this festival a special stage is set at the square in front of the opera house. The front street on the square is closed to cars and makes the main venue.

Today there was a reggae concert there by black and white people’s band. All the people were singing and dancing.

“Cultural Festival”

Stockholm is now filled with the atmosphere of the Cultural Festival. The town is full of people and posters. Today we are going to give a show as the last performer at 10:30 at night. We have to be responsible for being the last! It began raining around 8 o’clock when the sky was getting dark. A lot of audience were standing with their umbrellas open. We discussed how we would perform if the rain became hard, hoping they would not going back home. However, fortunately rain stopped just before we started our show. Thanks to that, more and more audience came to see our performance and their clapping and cheers sounded like those of a rock concert.

Here we are on the stage. The square was flooded with a huge number of people beyond the far end of the square. The number was, say, more than six thousand! I wished I could take a picture of the audience from the stage!

“King”

After the exciting concert of last night, today we performed at the reception “Stockholm Water Prize.” To our surprise, the King of Sweden attended the reception. We went down from the second floor to perform “Rakuda”(Merry Drumming) on the stairs and landing. Later we heard that the king has loved drums since he was little. We were not able to meet him formally but he said to us, “It was very good!” when he passed on us on his way back.

“Passionately”

We practiced shamisen (three-stringed Japanese instrument), chappa (small cymbal-like instrument) and other musical instruments at a big park. Tetsuro Okubo moved around us, crouching down, lying down, to take a lot of pictures of our practice scenes and at last the battery went out. Later he showed us the pictures he took, saying with satisfaction, “Passionate pictures I took!”

“Chappa and a Girl”

There were various people spending their own holiday at the park; families with their little kids, people who were spreading music like reggae from a speaker, people having a barbecue and so on. Among them we practiced swinging drum sticks, singing songs and playing chappa. We must have looked strange. All the passers-by watched us curiously. Among them there was a girl about-four-year-old, who looked interested in our practice. She was very cute, dancing to the sound of chappa.

“Trouble”

Today we said “Good-by” to Stockholm and traveled to Basel in Switzerland. We transferred at Copenhagen and arrived at the airport in Basel at 10 p.m. Then we had a trouble. The suitcases of four of us and those of three crew members didn’t come out. Then we remembered that they had said, “Can this small plane accommodate all of the baggage?” We began to complain, “They should have said so if it was impossible! I can do nothing without my suitcase! The laundry in my suitcase has not completely dried yet!”
At that time a tour manager came up to us to hand some gifts of apology from the airways. They gave us vanity bags. As soon as we saw them, our complaints went away and we were very pleased with the contents of the vanity bags. How calculating we are!

Basel is just on the border of the three countries, Switzerland, Germany and France. We saw the border with France when we were jogging. We are giving eight shows for six days from today. We are going to do two-hour-long show with regular settings in a perfect theater. We had been performing on open air stages or special stages for some events. I wonder if we were able to play differently today according to the different atmosphere. I wonder if we were able to communicate with the audience.

August 22nd　Second Performance in Basel

“Workshop”

We had a workshop this afternoon. We beat the “taiko” with some people in Basel. There were two big men among the participants, who looked really interested in the workshop.
They smiled with each other as each program, such as rhythm practice and choreography, proceeded. They sometimes practiced in their own way. Seeing them enjoy drumming, we felt again how attractive the “taiko” is. Not only the two men but also the other participants were devoted to drumming. The “taiko” is an instrument which soon becomes friends with new drummers. We feel proud that we play such an attractive instrument over the world. We’d like to devote ourselves to beating the “taiko” as hard as anyone else.

August 23rd 　The Third Day of the Concert in Basel

“Voice”

We shouted from the stage to the auditorium for voice training. Each of us shouted as loudly as possible; today’s goal, what we wanted to do and what we thought. We tried to utter everything that we had in mind. The voice came back to us, asking if we would really accomplish today’s goal and if we would live our conviction. We are on concert tour all the year round and give a show almost every day. We feel as if we were repeating the same thing each day. We confirm to ourselves that we should never be stuck into a rut. We should put on every show with fresh feeling.

August 24th 　The Fourth Day of the Concert in Basel

“The Border”

We started a day with jogging in the morning as usual. When we were jogging over a big bridge, we noticed the border with France. The other end of the bridge was in France. The other side of the river looked quite different from this side. The road signs were written in French and the style of building was very different from that of Germany.
We felt a little worried, passing by the national flag as we didn’t have our passports with us.

August 25th 　The Fifth Day of the Concert in Basel

“Sweet Pleasure”

We had a matinee as usual on weekend. After the matinee, we withdrew into the backstage to find a guest. She was the mother of the interpreter, Nana at the time of the Mexico tour three years ago. She said that today was Nana’s birthday and wanted us to say “Happy Birthday!” to her. We sincerely sang, over the phone, Happy Birthday song to Nana in Mexico.

“Good-by, Basel”

The eight shows were over in six days. On the last day we were busy doing a matinee and a night show and dismantling. We felt satisfied rather than tired after finishing all.
We entered the theater in Basel over the border for these six days. On the border we had to have our passport checked, sometimes had to wait for a long time and other times our tour manager left our passports at the hotel (two straight days). We went into France without passports while we were jogging. The town Basel gave us a lot of memory concerning the border.

August 27th 　Traveling to the next destination

“To Frankfurt”

We’ve come to Frankfurt by bus. Frankfurt is a very big city in Germany. There stand a lot of high buildings. Frankfurt is famous for Alte Oper, an opera house, which has a long and distinguished history. The house is so beautiful and solemn as such. It is so magnificent as to be printed on a postcard. This is the third time for us “Yamato” to perform in the theater. This time four of us are going to perform in this theater for the first time. For me this is the second time. I remember that I didn’t realize how great it was to use this theater when I had a show there for the first time.

August 28th　Day Off

“At Junkie Park”

Whenever we come to Frankfurt, we do training and practice at a park. The park is Junkie Park. It’s a big and beautiful park full of green and rabbits (for some reason). I hear that junkies get together at the park when night falls. That’s why we call it Junkie Park. Today we practiced at the Junkie Park. We are gearing up for the performances at Alte Oper. We are fired up for practice and training. People spending their holidays at the park watched us curiously and some spoke to us, saying “I saw your poster.” We’ve got so used to being watched that we’ve come to feel it even comfortable to perform at the park rather than on a stage.

August 29th

.”Alte Oper”

Today we did morning practice because we wanted to pump us up for the concert at Alte Oper. Today we will perform with some new members according to the new program at this famous theater. I’d like to convey what I learned here the last time to the junior members.

August 30th  Second Day for the Performance in Frankfurt

“Voice Training”

“The End of the summer”

This is the end of August. Time flies!
This time of the year makes us somewhat sentimental. What’s the memory of the summer? It reminds me of a festival. Children passed by my house in the evening, carrying a portable shrine. I heard the sound of the taiko (Japanese drums) in the distance and finally the sound of fireworks. I loved hearing the lively sound of the festival. I don’t know why but at the festival I liked the crowd, which I usually don’t like. I enjoyed looking at stalls. I remember in the middle of the crowd there was taiko. The sound of the taiko is the sound of a festival. It was thrilling and we became friends even with strangers on a festival day.