00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, I'm here right before the start of the 2024 Earth Celebration. You can see the crowd is starting to file in. Before the concert starts, it's a chance for me to connect with you and show you a little bit about the experience that takes place here at Sado Island's Earth Celebration.

00:00:17 John Daub: Every year in August, they have this festival. They're going on to their 40th year of doing this, which is really incredible. I've been coming here, maybe this is my fifth time. Let me show you exactly where we are on the map on the island here. So you can see that it's not that far away from Tokyo. If we come in from this location, you can see here, that's where the event is. The exact blue spot, this is the event area. Norm, who's one of our viewers, was here last year. He shared his experience with me when he came to visit Japan. He said he had an awesome time.

00:00:50 John Daub: This is one of those events in Japan. If you are here in August, you just can't miss it because Kodo (鼓童), one of the most renowned taiko groups in all the world, is based here, and they have their events all over the world. This is kind of like their homecoming. You can see there, it's a ferry ride from the city of Niigata to get here. It's really good to have a rental car if you're coming in from other parts of the island. Sado is an island, but it's deceptively large. It takes about an hour to get from one side to the other. So everything just takes time. There are buses here, but I highly recommend that you rent a car to do this.

00:01:31 John Daub: Today this is the last day. The festival takes place on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. There are packages where you can get tickets for all three days. I think it's a little bit of a discount. I'm not quite sure but I usually will go to all three of the nights here. Typically I'm coming here to film or to hang out. I made a video about Kodo which shows you the life that they have. It's called "Life of a Japanese Drummer" and this gets into the lifestyle of Kodo. If you haven't seen this on Only in Japan, it's a pretty good episode.

00:01:59 John Daub: I wanted to also take a chance to show you yesterday's footage. They had guests from Uganda and it was super cool because they mix in like the Japanese taiko sound with the sounds of this part of Africa. Africa also within the continent is quite diverse itself. Let me show you yesterday as people were filing in. They had at this time like a summer festival clothes. It looks like something from Tokushima's Awa Odori but it was kind of a fusion thing with the taiko drums. I love the fact that they have a lot of different types of drums. I love the fact that Kodo does this kind of mixing with styles. It's something that's very unique.

00:02:53 John Daub: Here as the days went on, as the day went on, that's the sound of the drummers from Africa last night. They had like the xylophone, like a mega xylophone with six people and singing in there but that was just the start of it. It started to really warm up here. You can see my favorite part yesterday was when they got out the big ones. See like their arms were straining. That part of the taiko drumming was like, I don't know, they're like five minutes of constantly banging the drums. I'm sure that their shoulders were getting quite a workout. It's pretty impressive.

00:04:15 John Daub: Here, let me show you the crowd. I'm in the media area but you can already see they've separated by SS. This is the section here where I sat on the first night filming from a different perspective. Actually I wasn't filming at all the first day and then there are different areas where you can buy the tickets. In the back there's a lot of seats. There's a lot of seats over there that you could sit down in but I think it's always better to sit down. You might want to have a blue sheet or tarp, a blue sheet, something kind of a tarp to sit on is what I'm saying. But today they're going to be filming a live stream. I don't know where you can see that but you'll be able to see tonight's performance which is the last one of the night live streamed also from this camera here. It's gonna be pretty cool. I'm not sure where exactly you can see that. If I get some information before the start I'll notify you guys on the Discord.

00:05:09 John Daub: Yeah. If you have any questions about the Earth Celebration please do write them in the comments below. I want to show you at the last thing that they do is an encore and that encore is usually very colorful. Let me see if I have... That's the ending of last night's show. I'm trying to find the encore that they had. It was so amazing yesterday's encore. Maybe here it is. I'm not sure if the final announcement center will be turning this off but you can see the live stream on their channel online.

00:07:59 John Daub: But I thought this was a great opportunity before since it has free time to show you what it's like behind the scenes here. One of the great things is there is a nice breeze off of the sea that comes in and cools us all down here. And you can see that you get a nice view of the sea back behind us. We had a full moon yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful. So it's a very picturesque place. We had the clouds in the background there and the moon was coming up from right there. But this is a really great experience if you are in Japan and just happen to come here. You're going to be rewarded with a very good show.

00:08:34 John Daub: This event has all free seating within each designated area. In area SS and area S please sit on the lawn. And in area A please sit on the turf. I mean can you guys see yourselves here? It's one of the events of the year I think. I like to go to live events but for me, I don't know, for a lot of people perhaps thinking of just taiko drums being a show could be quite not as entertaining. But they found a way and I showed it to you. There's a way that they make it really interesting by there's a performance art to it. Not just banging the drums but also like they're smiling and dancing. And there is some singing involved with the taiko drums and that is the artistry of it. It's not just the sound but the performance behind it.

00:09:27 John Daub: I'm waiting for the announcements to end. This is also good to hear. People report missing items to the lost and found. Oh I see Ruth over there. I think they found, there's Leo. There's Leo. I see Chris. Leo. I got Leo and Grandpa and Mama Kanae seats over there. And Ruth is next to him as well which is so cool. I would say, you know what? It seems like about 20% of the people here are non-Japanese which is actually quite high compared to other years. They said last year was like 16%. So they've seen a trend line of more international visitors coming here which I think is great.

00:10:33 John Daub: Inside the event hall, they always take a 20 minute intermission which is just the perfect amount of time for you to go out and get a drink. And then come back in, a drink or something to eat and it's more than enough time to get something. Because there's some street food right outside of the event. They give you these wristbands. Wristbands that you can use. I don't have them because I have a press pass here you see. But with the wristband you can come in and out freely and then bring the drinks inside.

00:11:04 John Daub: Alright, they're just about to start. This is where I say goodbye to you. But leave me any questions if you have anything about the Earth Celebration because it's just one of those amazing events that takes place every year that gets me pretty excited about August. It's so hot. It's easy not to get excited about August. But when Kodo comes around and I get a chance to come and see Earth Celebration, yeah, it's time to get excited again. Bobby Hawk is here. I will absolutely have fun and report to you tomorrow. We're taking the ferry back to Niigata and I'll let you know how everything went tonight and maybe share some footage from tonight's performance with you. Until then, have a great time guys.

00:11:36 John Daub: I did a livestream just about three hours ago in a sleepy fishing village. One that maybe is the perfect place that you've been looking for to spend a couple of days of doing absolutely nothing but eating food and walking around, sleeping. Sleepy fisherman's treats. Doesn't smell like fish either which is even better. Alright, time for the show. I'll see you guys tomorrow from either Niigata or the ferry or somewhere. But it probably isn't going to be here. See you.