North America Guitar Tour
LA 2 Days
June 20-21, 2014
On the second day in LA, we played at a coffee house in Redondo Beach. We were here the night before and were well rested, so we were a little relaxed. It was a walkable distance, but we had our equipment, so we went there in Mr. T's car. As soon as I started setting up, I realized that I had left one of a equipment in the car parked on the street near Mr. T's house. There was still time before the show was scheduled to start, so I walked to the car and headed back to the shop, but I got completely lost. It was a nice temperature at dusk, but with the show approaching, I was sweating from the anxiety of being lost in an unfamiliar place. In the end, Mr. T called us and asked, "Where are you?" and I told him the shops and signs we could see around me to find out where I was, and somehow I arrived just in time for the show to start.
It was my first public performance since the music store in Seattle. There were sofas mixed in with the chairs in the shop, and some people were reading books, some were working with their notebooks open, and some were a little drunk after drinking at the bar next door (probably the same owner), creating a very relaxed atmosphere. Thankfully, several people who said they were my fans came to see me. Once the performance started, I felt like I was at home. I played for nearly three hours, occasionally responding to requests. By this time, my English conversation skills had gotten back to normal, and I found myself trying to make the customers laugh despite my limited vocabulary.
The next day, I was scheduled to play background music at a party held at the home of a friend of Mr. T's. During the day, he took me to a music store and a hamburger restaurant that is said to be the best in LA. I couldn't tell the difference between the burger at T.G.I. Fridays, but it was clearly different from fast food burgers like McDonald's. Next to us, a large man who must be over 80 years old stuffed his mouth with a burger so big it was too much for both hands. I was impressed by the attention to detail of Japanese food culture, where elderly people eat health tofu and hijiki seaweed with chopsticks.
The house of my acquaintance was a very impressive house, and the party was held on the second floor, but I think more than 30 people came. A Japanese person who couldn't make it to the live show the day before asked if he could somehow join us, so I asked him to let him in. He brought his guitar and asked me to sign it. I've done it before in Malaysia, but it's quite nerve-wracking.
I played almost the entire party, so I didn't have many opportunities to talk to everyone, but I was able to do an interesting experiment. We decided to play in a corner of the living room, and after setting up, I started playing the music, but the voices of about 10 people who were standing and talking in the dining room and kitchen, which were connected without any partitions, became noticeably louder. The volume was low because it was background music. So I whispered to the five or six people sitting by me in the living room, "Interesting things will happen if you observe the behavior of the people in the dining room and kitchen." I played a little and then stopped for about a minute, and then the volume of the voices changed as if they were turning a volume knob. The people who I told about this nodded with a look of surprise. I have experienced such cases many times when playing background music in Japan, so it doesn't seem to be related to the country.
As the party was about to end near midnight, I stopped playing and went to the kitchen to pick up some leftovers. I was planning to go to Tucson, Arizona that night, so I couldn't eat a lot (it would make me sleepy). Then, the people of the house and Mr. T's wife handed me some wrapped in aluminum foil. Such thoughtfulness brought tears to my eyes. I said goodbye to the Mr. and Mrs. T who had been so kind to me in front of this house. It was only two days, but it was a lonely farewell (in fact, I would be staying with them again in two months, but I didn't know that).
*The names of people who appear in the text are written as initials until their identities can be confirmed.
Contents
Introduction
Until Departure
Seattle
To California
Day Off
Sunnyvale
To La
LA 2 Days
To Tucson
Albuquerque
To Colorado (beginning of Miracle)
Berthoud
Denver
to Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City 2 days
To Texas
San Antonio
Georgetown
Dallas
Houston 2 Days
Benton
Nashville (CAAS)
Roswell
Tampa 2 Days
Miami
Orland 2 Days
Myrtle Beach
Chapel Hill 3 Days
Kingsport
To Indiana
Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Festival
To Staten Island
Manhattan
Phillipsburg
Nazareth (Martin Guitar Factory)
To Massachusetts (end of Miracle)
Methuen
To Montreal
To Buffalo
Meadvill A Day Before
Meadvill Ghost Hotel
Detroit
Chicago
Minneapolice
Spin Off #1
Spin Off #2 "EU Tour IN 2008 / Until Departure
Czech 1
Czech 2
London
Liverpool
Chesham
To Germany
Lemgo
Ingolstadt
Bregenz
To Italy
Florence
The Last Gig
Going Home