My snow driving skills put to good use… So much fun to be in a show with such other wonderful musicians… Attack of the curtain!.. Thank goodness for the extra help, or we would have never made it to the next appointment!.. I was certain she’d said “Last time!”… Bananas and a rubber chicken… Testing my new camera by taking pictures of Tiger Okoshi… Good thing I carry my own hachijo bachi… Amazing to see the girls so enthusiastic… MC’ing because I’m loud and the mic is broken… A night sky filled with confetti… 4 shows in 4 days is my taiko limit and when someone offers you nuts, take them!… Great fun to jump into a piece I hadn’t played in 6 months… Improvising on stage as people file in… Too many things to mention… Temporary tattoo for Sheilarae… My first parade and being very colorful… Playing Reimei at dawn… I can’t help but thank my closest taiko friends for letting me drag them to a mountain and order them around… Playing in the back of a pick-up truck and dancing in the street… Manny, the world’s largest athlete introducing us and waiting for Martin Short before we can set the stage… Forgot a drum stand, time to improvise!.. Made our own hachimaki in the time between shows… The ONE family bond is stronger than my personal fears… Canceled due to tornado warning!… Solidified the relationship of performer to audience… This street isn’t big enough for all the noise we make!.. Many amazing taiko groups under the apple trees… So many of us were sick, but we still gave it our all… Even sick, you can’t stop me from fue!.. Almost everything that was said about their dojo, we could echo about ONE. It was amazing to see their strength of community and what it had built… My first MC’ing where I got to think about it ahead of time… ONE working towards its own street fair! Plus I made a new shime stand.

A few of the year's taiko moments.

I feel exceptionally blessed by taiko in 2009. I can only hope for what 2010 might bring.

As Mark said, “The Cool Factor was definitely on the high side!”   How often do you get to drum in the middle of Harvard Square amidst a laser light show with fog machines and a confetti storm - all while staring down a 2-3 story float shaped like a Harvard Prof???   That’s cool enough, but then add to that the reason why we were there – to welcome revelers celebrating the Harvard Lampoon Castle’s 100th birthday!   On May 2, this was exactly the scene for about 300-ish party goers plus all the people who just happened to be on the street at the time.

The plan was that we played Shin-en, an upbeat festival song, followed by Mahora, a more intense song.  At that point the Jester would emerge from the building and parade around the building with the crowd while we moved onto Kokyo.  Well, apparently the Jester really wanted to come out and join us because she came out almost immediately after Shin-en and just jumped right in, trying almost every drum and accessory we had.

A few of us played at the top of the stairs and sitting on the railings.  So, we had a slightly different vantage point than those on the sidewalk.  While we didn’t get barraged by confetti up there – there was a point when all I could see was a bunch of bachi (drumsticks) above the fog and swirling confetti.

The atmosphere was fantastic.   This is definitely one of my favorite taiko moments.   Two weeks later, we are still finding purple, yellow, and gold confetti tucked amongst the crevices of our equipment.   I hope we are still finding them 6 months from now….