Demons drum up Centennial Hall

Ian Mayer Arizona Daily Wildcat Kohei Inoue (left) and Taizo Shinodo of Ondekoza (Japanese for "Demon Drummers") performed live Tuesday on the Mall to promote last night's concert at Centennial Hall. Ondekoza developed from folk music and traditional festival drum routines and is played on bamboo flutes, stringed instruments and drums ranging from 20 to 700 pounds.

I had missed out on the preview at the Mall, but word of mouth led me to believe I was about to see quite the interesting performance. So, I sat in the theater waiting for the show to begin.

Then I heard it: a faint and distinct, continuous rumble. I could even feel it. It sounded like thunder. Who knew, with our weather forecasters' track record lately, it could have been an impending storm. As the thunder grew louder, though, I realized those sounds had to belong to a drum. The curtain rose.

Five enormous, 700-pound drums were revealed, hanging from the ceiling, towering over the drummers. The backdrop was illuminated with red lights, accentuating the scarlet drums and creating a sense of displacement for the audience. It was an awkward unfamiliarity that provoked my curiosity. I was hooked from the beginning.

Visually, the show was creative. To see 10 men and women balance tempo, coordination, humor and technique in an intense two-and-a-half-hour show was incredible. It took me a while to get the feel for it, but eventually I realized that this music was not as primitive as I had expected.

Just as I was sitting there in my jeans and T-shirt thinking to myself, "How hard can it really be to get up there and beat on a drum?" they were up on stage doing something so fantastic and so amazing that made me rethink my presumptuous question. The drummers had the incredible endurance to release immense pent-up energy and strike their instruments with force, grace and confidence. Sometimes they played so fast their sticks turned into a blur.

Although most of the time they played Taiki music, which means "big drum," they also incorporated bamboo flutes and string instruments, as well as vocals.

Twin brothers Ryohei and Kohei captivated the crowd with a shamisen duet, a highlight of the show. A shamisen is a three-stringed instrument which generally conveys the Japanese mood and feelings and sounds similar to a banjo. They started off, each complimenting the other with a simple yet eloquent melody. They even ended up playing one shamisen together - one was strumming the strings while the other took care of the chords. The light humor among the siblings easily drew the audience in.

As expected, a standing ovation was rewarded to the performers in the end. Kelvin Underwood, one of the drummers, is a foreign exchange student from North Carolina who had been touring with Ondekoza for three years. In the final segments of the show, he gave a meaningful speech about how much he'd learned about Japanese culture by touring with them. "Working together we can be less ignorant and we can eliminate racism," he pointed out.

Later, as if the final bow wasn't enough, Ondekoza stood outside Centennial Hall and continued playing music as the crowd left the building, letting their enlightening sounds resonate in the darkness.