Hey everyone, sorry this post is pretty late.
On Friday, at 3, we (the african ensemble) met at the music annex to load up all the drums. We left at about 3:30, and our car, with Jesse and the driver, Colin, who plays classical guitar, made it there first. We parked, for free, because we told the parking attendant who we were. Of course.
We carried our drums upstairs and we happily greeted by the lady who coordinates all of the concerts and events. She showed us where to put our drums, gave us free admission passes, and showed us to the Green Room. Yes, we had a Green Room. My first one ever. Hopefully, it's the first of many to come.
I was really excited about the Green Room.
Then I went downstairs and found everyone as they were parking and told them what to do and where to go. The sound guy came up and introduced himself to me, since I was the one directing traffic, which was pretty cool. I guess I was a little caught up in the moment.
We helped Gideon set up the stage and changed into our cool costumes and ate some chips, and we relaxed until we were directed downstairs with about 2 minutes before show time.
The concert started at 6pm in the middle of the museum, where we started singing and playing a processional down to the main stage. In my opinion, that was the best part of the concert, because we got to march in and dance around and play really loud around expensive and elaborate works of art. And it was fun.
Once we got to the stage, we played Tokoe, Gota, Dagbamba, and Kpanlogo, and they all went pretty well. Sure, someone missed a call and played a little after we all stopped every once in a while, but for 3 hours of rehearsal, it wasn't bad. The dancers had really awesome solos in the Gota and we had a big dance party in the end, during Kpanlogo, which probably went on for more than ten minutes. It was a blast.
Sorry I have poor sentence structure, but hopefully you don't care; I don't, this is a music blog.
After our big show we packed some of the drums up and carried the rest upstairs to set up for a show that we all thought would be just Gideon, but really ended up being the veterans playing whatever Gideon wanted to play. They played on the 4th floor, in between the Sub Saharan Africa and American exhibits, and even though there were loud drums and shakers, you could still hear Brave Combo playing on the main stage on the 1st floor.
Brave Combo is a groovy, funky polka/rock/punk/jam band. If you haven't heard them, check them out, they rock.
They also play a mean hokey pokey.
Anyways, I got a video of the vets playing upstairs. My video camera could only take 1:26 of video at the time, so this is all I got.
I think it's pretty cool that I can be a part of a group of goofy people that like to dance around and jam to West African beats.
Have a good weekend everyone, see you on Monday.
M
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