forgotten_aria

I made a life time memory tonight. Odaiko New England played at the 100th aniversary of the castle, the Lampoon building in harvard square. First, they let us change inside, so I got to see a few rooms. What few rooms I did see were really amazing and wacky.

Then we set up, while the lazers, giant floating guy being inflated. We put some of the drums and people on the steps and on the walls. People walk by, asking when we're on. We've been told by the orgainizers to give as little information as possible.

Completely unrelated across the street the police are called because peices are falling off a building.

It gets darker, and the lighting gets more extreme, the lazers and the fog start going full out. We're given out queue and we start looping a song while the VIPs slowly walk down from the Charles Hotel from their dinner. We loop for a long time, barely being able to hear eachother as the drums echo off the buildings. We get the signal to switch to our performance song (rather than atmosphere song.) We start and are given the single to stop about 30 seconds in. They slowly process towards us, caring lanterns, wearing suits. An expectantly eclectic set of characters. Then the jester comes out, dances about, and we start our second looped song. The confetti canons go off and suddently the sky is raining 1"x2" purple, yellow and gold fakes. I'm playing flute and have my inhalation blocked by one or two of them. They fly down my shirt into my bra, they cover the drums as people slowly pound them away. The lazers and the lights bounce off them. We play and play and play. The people are supposed to go inside, but they don't. We continue to play as they all take pictures of us with iphones and pocket digital cameras. Some of the guests even start playing our gongs and drums. Eventually they start filing in. We continue to play until we finally determ that those who are waiting for us to stop won't go in until we do and we stop.

We get some appaulse, some praise, and then start packing up. We're picking confetti out from between the leather and the wood. Once I was home I picked some out of my cleavage.

I just can put into words the night. To start with, it was a perfect night. To be a part of that was completely amazing. The lighting, the endurance of the long playing, the complete surrealness of the whole thing. I'm taking this night to my death bed.

Oh, and I'm SO keeping the camera. ( pictures )