Tsucchi's "Taiko Kidan" 30th episode | Short story "Arekara..." Episode 3

"Since then..." Episode 3

On a pleasant autumn day, I was calmly waiting on the sidewalk at the Tayamon intersection for a car to pick me up. If you look to the left, you will see Yasukuni Shrine. In front of me, a self-driving car silently runs along Yasukuni Dori. Climbing the pedestrian bridgeJapanThe golden jewel on top of the Budokan shines dullly in the autumn sky. If you look at the bottom right, you will see the Showa Building, and behind it is the Old Military Hall, an old-fashioned building that was known as the Kudan Kaikan in our time. east of 2011JapanKudan Kaikan, which was damaged in the Great Earthquake, was temporarily closed and revived as a strange complex building with only its exterior remaining, resembling the appearance of a shiny skyscraper growing from the roof, but now, more than 20 years later, it looks almost like a ruin. Few of the complexes that were built one after another in the center of Tokyo now remain, and the city has become much quieter. Personally, I don't dislike this quiet Tokyo.

Things that were built as afterthoughts were gradually falling into disrepair, but the old buildings that had been standing here and there for a long time were still quietly standing in their place. As I was thinking about this, a black car stopped in front of me, and I heard a voice calling out to me from inside.

"Yo! I kept you waiting. Come on in."

His name is Okuno-san and he calls me in the same bright voice as before. He is an employee of an instrument rental company that I have been working at since I was 20 years old. Of course, he is now retired, but he is still active in the field and has earned tremendous trust from young people. This Budokan performance is his project. The desire to carry out this action, even to the extent of pushing aside the risk of infection among the elderly, probably means that this will be the last big stage. However, over the past 10 years, I have heard him say, ``This is his last big stage.'' Maybe it's because he's an Edo guy who talks about medaka fish as if they were whales, but thanks to that, everyone, including myself, had a lot of fun at work.

The car heads down Yasukuni Dori toward Shinjuku, turns left at Kudanzakagami, left again at Chidorigafuchi, and glides along Daikancho Dori toward Kitanomaru. In front of the Kitanomaru, you can see the brick structure of the former Imperial Guards Division headquarters building on the left. It now stands as the Crafts Gallery of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The scenery of the trees and brick buildings changing in autumn colors is very beautiful. This is one of my favorite scenery in Tokyo. Turning left at Kitanomaru and passing the modern building of the Science and Technology Museum on the right, there was a large tree standing in the middle of the road.My daughter, who was still in elementary school, called this tree ``the gatekeeper of the Budokan''. Indeed, when I looked at it again, the tree seemed to be saying, ``From now on, please be more careful at Budokan.'' Once you pass that tree, the Budokan stands quietly on your right. The first time I visited here was when I was 11 years old, for the triumphant return performance of YMO's 1980 Second World Tour. The emotion, or rather the shock, of that moment is still deeply rooted in my original experience.

We parked our car in the parking lot behind the Budokan official entrance and got out. The members were myself, Mr. Okuno, and two young men in their 30s who set up the stage and acted as stage managers.

This is the first time I've met them (actually, it seems they've met several times, but I completely forgot about them. I'm sorry), but they look like they're serious about their work and seem very trustworthy. Go through the entrance door for those involved, turn left into the hallway where a bust of Matsutaro Shoriki greets you, go down the stairs and turn right to find a room labeled ``Central Control Room.'' During concerts, this is the production headquarters. A few men from the management came to work today for a preview, but I politely declined as I had work to do first. When you push open the green iron door right in front of you, the Budokan arena opens up.

When I was 11 years old, it seemed like an incredibly large space, but now that I've started working in this world, when I stand on the Budokan stage, it's surprisingly compact, and I can see everything from the stage to the expressions of the audience on the third floor, and it really has the atmosphere of a ``Live House Budokan.'' There's always a sense of intimacy on this stage, as if everyone is looking into a commemorative photo together. Then, when I looked up, I saw a large Japanese flag hanging down. I'm not a nationalist, but the Japanese flag at the Budokan stands out.JapanThere is a Budokan in. After all, the Beatles are performing here, so I guess there's nothing to complain about as it's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

At YMO, they played the Beatles' ``All You Need Is Love'' at the end of the show, just two weeks after John Lennon was shot in front of the Dakota House. I still remember the pain in my heart when I remembered the photo of John Lennon singing "All Is Love" on the world's first satellite broadcast.

As I was walking around the Budokan arena thinking about this, I heard a voice calling me from the other side. ``Mr. Kawauchi, can you please come for a second? I'd like to ask you something about the sleeves of the stage...'' I said with a crawl as I headed off for a short run, and Mr. Okuno said with a big laugh, ``Hey, you don't have to run, it's bad luck if you fall and die~!'' The young man who was dragged along also chuckled. Two old people and two young people were sitting in the arena talking about various things while looking at stage plans. The floor of the arena was cool, and the coldness made my spine stretch. "Okay! That's all right! I'm glad we were able to have the final meeting before the Christmas production. Thank you very much!" A young stage director named Nomoto-kun bowed to me and Okuno-san, rolled up his drawings, and smiled. Yamamoto-kun, who was in charge of setting up the stage, also seemed to be doing well as it was his first time working on a big stage in a while. We feel safe knowing that we have a reliable young man.

We are a generation that used to feel unreasonable because we were sometimes rejected by older generations just because we were young, so we tried not to do that to young people, but the atmosphere of the times has clearly changed, and for young people who seriously want to learn something, the amount of information on the Internet has become the most powerful tool, and we are absorbing all kinds of knowledge and skills at a speed that is incomparable to when we were young. Of course, we also took full advantage of the benefits of the internet.

However, many of the young people also realized that what they lacked most was "on-the-job experience."

So, as a matter of course, they worked hard to be able to work in the field, and when they appeared before our eyes, we witnessed firsthand the use of skills and knowledge unique to the field, or in other words, ``wisdom for work.'' That's something I experienced when I was younger, and the shock, excitement, joy, and stimulation I felt was indescribable. I wonder if ``creating a stage'' is such a complex task. For example, the work began at 9 a.m., the stage manager set out the center of the stage, laid the carpet, hung the lights from batons, and stacked large speakers at both ends of the stage.This was shocking, but when I witnessed the brutal work of nailing the speakers directly together to prevent them from moving, I couldn't help but burst into laughter. Later, at the launch, one of my senior sound engineers asked me, ``What were you watching that made you laugh?'' When I told him about it, the senior said, ``I'm sure you'd laugh if you were driving a nail into a big speaker,'' and he gulped down his beer mug and laughed.

When all the batons with lights and curtains fly, the stage set is assembled. The drum stand, keyboard stand, and steel frame were quickly assembled, the top plate was placed on the drum stand, vibration-absorbing asphalt mats were spread over the drum stand, punch carpet was laid down, and the drum set was placed on top.

It was around 10:30 or 11 o'clock here.

While the stage crew is busy preparing for the performance on stage, the people backstage are also busy preparing. The artist's dressing room, the support band's dressing room, the crew's dressing room, preparing each meal, and putting drinks to quench your thirst from the hard work of loading and unloading them into a cooler box and ready to go. At the same time, hot coffee is also essential.

While the mountains of equipment brought in by Yoi-don are moving left, right, up, and down, we, the instrument techs, are very busy in the time it takes for the stage to be completed, such as moving the instruments we are responsible for to a safe and calm place to work, changing guitar strings, drum heads, and maintaining sweaty damage. I always check the hardware and leave the drums out on top of the case to let them absorb the atmosphere of the place and get used to them. I don't do tuning on my sleeve. I just check for loose screws and such. Check the hardware for damage or looseness. We set the instruments on stage, connected the power, checked the voltage, power supply noise, and phase, and had the power distributed to each part around noon. I put away the musical instrument cases and other things scattered around the stage (the cleaning up at this time had already begun, and I put the cases away in an efficient way to take them apart) and had lunch here.

I usually have free time until around 2pm for lighting shoots and data entry, but if I have time, it's time for a nap. This seems to be quite important. Instrument techs are assigned a tuning room where they change strings and make adjustments, but since drums are mostly played in the sleeves and on stage, it's actually a room for drum techs to relax. That said, there is a lot of detailed work such as creating a set list.

Most of the port band (probably means support band) were foreigners, so the backstage wasJapanIt was a fun place to exchange words and English.

Sound check and rehearsal start around 3 o'clock. Review the corrections and points of interest from the previous stage. Rehearsals ended around 4:30, and everyone was on standby until the doors opened at 5:30. Some people eat an early dinner, while others prepare for the next day's meal. Some people relax.

While this was going on, it was finally time for the real thing. Check out the instruments just before the performance while feeling the buzz of the audience. I'm a fan of doing things without making any noise as much as possible, but some people do it in a flashy way. It doesn't really matter, but I don't make much noise. Waiting for the actual performance, I made sure to check the earphones, clicks, kick pedal, hi-hat stand, etc., which have been commonplace for about 30 years.

No matter how many times I hear the cheers, the moment when the announcements are made and the lights in the audience seats, which become even more noisy, are immediately switched to darkness, it gives me goosebumps no matter how many times I hear it. The song begins with a simple and dynamic drum fill, and the artist appears with plenty of time to spare. This is the moment when cheers turn into screams. The moment when everyone's face lights up. This is a blissful moment that you will never get tired of no matter how many times you experience it.

If the concert ends successfully and with great excitement, it will be time to leave at the speed of light. Reverse the preparation and take it apart as if it were in fast forward mode. It takes about an hour and a half to remove five 11-ton trucks.

Once loaded, you can head back to the hotel or just hop on the tour bus and head to the next city. There was an unspoken rule between the foreign bands and us, the musical instrument techs, that we were to leave a few cans of beer for the band to use for the techs. Again, after watching the band return to the hotel during the show, I sneak into the band's dressing room, wrap up the beer I wanted and the leftover food from the catering, and take it home. The catering lady will be happy if food waste is reduced, and we can also eat and drink for free, so we can kill two birds with one stone.

The scenery I saw from the window of the Travelin bus while on the tour bus was pitch black even along the national highway, with the lights of private houses shining here and there. Each one of them is home to the lives of people and the activities of their families, and when we, the traveling crows who leave behind our families, look at such scenes, we always think of the faces of our wives, children, and lovers, and feel an irresistible sense of sadness. However, the charm of this job that I can't quit is probably the relationship between music and the people who love it.
After gliding through the sun-drenched streets of Tokyo and parting ways with my fellow passenger, Mr. Okuno, at his home, I felt like I didn't want to go home, so I forced the driver to take me from Uchibori Street to Sotobori Street.

Before I knew it, I was running around the town where I lived with Naomi. As soon as I laid my eyes on the scenery of that city lying on the slope, I felt a heart-wrenching feeling of love fill my body. Without thinking, I asked the car to stop and landed in the city for the first time in a while.

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What did you think of the third episode? We continue to pray for everyone's safety and health. Please take care of yourself as the temperature difference is getting more intense.