KODO – One Earth Tour

February 16, 2003

Last week I went to go see Kodo play Royce Hall for a concert. After I bought the tickets, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew there’d be a lot of drumming but not much else.

The program runs 90 minutes long, and explores several different forms of Taiko drumming. The first number used three medium sized drums with six drummers (one on each side). Each drummer had a drumstick the size of width of a stickball bat, and about half as long. They took turns soloing, and each drummer had their own take on the low stance baseball like swings that the drumming required. One drummer twisted with so much torque to generate the necessary force that it looked like his head would come flying off.

Over the course of the show, some numbers were better than others, and there were about four or five different drums, some used in conjunction with flutes or gongs, but not much other instrumentation. It doesn’t really get boring though, because the booming, primal nature of the drums is hard to ignore. Also, there’s a certain amount of athleticism to the different stances, and in the most strenuous combinations, it looks like music as martial arts.

The big showstopper is when they roll out the O-Daiko, a massive 900 pound drum that measures four feet across. It’s carved out of one piece of wood (a gigantic tree, I’d imagine) and comes out on a cart that weights two tons. It’s a mind boggling piece of equipment, and brings some serious thunder when struck.

After the big O-Daiko finale, the entire troupe of 12 men and 4 women came out for a big dancing and drumming party and instead of exiting backstage, they walk out drumming through the aisles and greeting the fans, who were on their feet clapping to the beat.

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