I’m usually late for posts but this time I’m early.? This one is coming to you live from a ferry traveling from England to Ireland.? So far this Songs of the Soul tour has been to Amsterdam, Paris, Oxford and Bristol.
Tonight we play in Dublin and Sunday is London.? Crowds have been between 400 and 800 I believe.? London is expected to draw something like 900 people.? Yesterday we missed our ferry because of bad luck and bad weather.? Today is going to be tight but should be ok.? Because of this delay we’ve had to do some creative rehearsing to be ready for tonight.? Last night we stayed at the Travel Lodge in Bangor and the only place we could rehearse was in the Burger King after they closed.? Today we also practiced in the traveler’s lounge of the ferry terminal.? One lady was on the way to a family wedding and was disappointed to miss an orchestra performance in Edinburgh this evening but was now thrilled to get an impromptu performance.
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Now it’s later.? We spent approximately 14 hours on the Emerald Isle and this post is coming from the ferry back to England.? The concert in Dublin went very well with about 1000 enthusiastic people in attendance.? This will be our biggest concert for this tour because the capacity in London (concert tomorrow) is for 900, I believe.
At the beginning of each concert we have been asking audience to hold their applause for the very end of the concert to maintain the meditative atmosphere of the concerts.? One of the unique elements of this Dublin concert is that they mostly ignored the directives and applauded when they well pleased.? I figure that’s a good problem to have!? Our MC is a gentleman from London so the joke after the concert is that the Irish are not interested in following directives given to them by an Englishman 🙂
I forgot to mention the line-up for this series of concerts.? They include The Gandharva Loka Orchestra, Adesh and Sadanand (tabla and sitar), Shamita and Boiravi (cello and violin), Temple Song Hearts, Arthada‘s and Friends and Sahadeva’s Group.? Also featured are videos of Sri Chinmoy.
The last concert of this tour will be in London tomorrow.
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The tour is over now and everybody that was involved with it’s production is extremely inspired.? The London concert got approximately 900 people as expected.? We played in Cadogan Hall which is home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.? I just finished a 12 hour bus ride from London to Amsterdam and am looking forward to the comforts of home.? Saturday night we had a small meditation convention in London hosted by members of the London Sri Chinmoy Centre.? The program involved meditation of course but also a very well appreciated rap recounting our adventures on this tour including missing ferries and rehearsing in Burger King restaurants.? The rappers were Sadanand, Abhinabha and Samalya with myself playing a little looping thing on the guitar.? We brought out the best our respective countries represent in terms of hip hop (Ireland, Holland, Russia, Canada (!?!?) )
In terms of 2011 Songs of the Soul tours, advanced info suggests Japan in June, Europe in November and Bangladesh in December.? Stay tuned.? There are excellent pictures by Adarini on this tour Songs of the Soul website and also excellent pics of the London concert by Pavitrata here.