“We Are in France!”

Dear Readers, how are you?
We are in Paris, France now. Rows of houses look orderly along the street and people on the street look fashionable here in Paris. By the way, today was a busy day. In the afternoon we appeared on an open live broadcast of radio. Three of us went to the radio station and performed in costumes for three minutes in front of audience. It may have helped to advertise “Yamato.” Almost all the seats for our first performance were sold out. To tell you the truth, this is our first time to have concerts in France for these long days. We got excited when the three-week-long performance in Paris was decided.

“Where Are We?”

It’s amazing! Japanese restaurants are so pleasant in Paris! People are waiting in a long line in front of every Japanese restaurant around lunch time. And to our surprise there is a Japanese restaurant named ‘Fukuchiyama’, which is the hometown of our star taiko drummer, Mr. Kenmei Matsushita.

“ Extremely Tight Schedule”

The schedule was so tight today too. We held a workshop at the theater in the afternoon and have a good time with French taiko fans. Then we left for a TV station to do rehearsal three times for midnight shooting. After that we rushed back to the theater, prepared in a hurry and had a concert. After finishing it we went back to the TV station and went on the air at half past midnight. We were on the air only for three minutes but it took us several hours from preparation to the actual take. It’s a hard work to appear on TV. Time passed so fast and we fell fast asleep.

Today we gave a mini-concert.

We performed at an event space in a CD shop in a shopping mall. We moved in a lot of taiko drums and began a mini-concert. The sound of taiko drums attracted large crowds and the venue grew livelier. As soon as the concert was finished, we moved the taiko drums back to the theater. We were still excited after the mini-concert and the excitement made the night concert still better.

We had two concerts a day for the first time in France and this year!
Two concerts a day may sound no big deal but in fact it makes us so exhausted that we can hardly get up. I don’t know why but during the concert we never feel exhausted. Once we finish it, our consciousness sometimes nearly snaps and we don’t even remember when we went to bed.

Hi, Readers! I’d like to tell you about Paris.
This is the first tour guide by “Yamato.”
I’ll tell you about the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.

The website says as follows. The style is Romano-bysantine. In 1870, war broke out between France and Germany and France faced military defeat. The response of MM. Alexandre Legentil and Hubert Rehault de Fleury was spiritual. They vowed to build a church consecrated to the Heart of Christ in reparation. It took a several months to work on the foundations. Underpinning pits 33 meters deep were needed. It cost more than 40 million franc and took 40 years to complete the construction.
It’s a beautiful while building. I hope you are able to feel as if you were sightseeing in Paris by reading our tour guide.

Today is the first day off since we came to Paris on tour.
This is the second tour guide by “Yamato.” It’s about La tour Eiffel.

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World Fair, marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.
It was designed by Maurice Koechlin and it was named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel.

“The Second Week in Paris”

This week we are giving seven concerts in six days too. Sound of the taiko is heard here and there. We never stop practicing. During the sound check we are not allowed to make any noise but we didn’t stop practicing at the hallway and were told off for disturbing the sound check.

“Hayate (A Gale)”

We, “Yamato” have a number, “Hayate”, which is a piece of the samisen (three-stringed Japanese instrument) and the taiko. One of our trainees, Mr. Takahiro Mon is desperately practicing its taiko part. He says that he seldom listens to music unlike young people of these days. I guess it will be difficult for him to time his taiko-beat to melody and sure enough he has difficulty timing his beat to the melody of the samisen.
“Hang in there, Takahiro! Leave yourself to music!

The third tour guide by “Yamato”!
---Let’s share the atmosphere of Paris.---
Today we’d like to tell you about ---the triumphal arch!
The triumphal arch is one of the buildings which symbolize Paris. The word, triumphal arch often refers to the Etoile Triumphal Arc, which is one of the world famous tourist attractions. Twelve streets including Champs Elysees radiate from the triumphal arch. As it looks like a star (etoile), it was called la place de l’Etoile. So it has an official name “Arc de triamphe de Etoile” meaning an triumphal arch at the place of Etoile. However it is now called la place de Charles de Gaulle, I hear.
It is Mr. Kenmei Matsushita who is standing in the middle of the picture. It’s funny that he looks as if he were wearing the triumphal arch on the head.

“We visited the Louvre.”

This is the second day off in France. The most likely place for us to visit is of course the Louvre! We saw a lot of works that we had seen in our school fine art text books; for example, “the Venus of Milo” and one of the most famous in the Louvre, “the Mona Lisa.” There were so many people around the famous work that we had difficulty finding it. “Oh, here it is! Ohhhhh…. it was smaller than we had expected, we thought.

“Third week has begun in Paris!”

Today we entered the theater at 10 a.m. and kept practicing all the time until 7 p.m. As we have just another week left in Paris, we are all fired up for performance. Today’s audience warmed up the concert by cheering as if they knew our enthusiasm. We were in high spirits all the more for the excited audience’s reaction. Thanks to the excitement we were comfortably tired after the concert.