As soon as we arrived, our drummer, Ikki and our keyboard player, Ryosuke accompanied Ms. Ishii our sound tech to the National theater.
Their preliminary meeting didn’t proceed as expected, and they could not find out what kind of equipment there was in the National Theater. We knew beforehand that Roland corporation didn’t operate there, so we brought some of our equipment with us. We still had to find out what we could use and what to rent. Not knowing anything in terms of what equipment was available for the concert in advance, we came to Ethiopia. We just wanted to see with our own eyes the concert venue, and what we could use there. For that reason, Ikki, Ryosuke, and Ms. Ishi headed to the theater right after arriving at the airport and before they even checked in to their hotel.
Not fully being aware of Ethiopia's music situation, we were saved by one of Ethiopia's most famous producers,Abegasu Shiota.He is half-Japanese.
Just as our final preparation for the trip to Ethiopia reached its peak back in July, an article was in a Japanese newspaper.
I thought it was interesting timing, so I asked the Japanese embassy in Ethiopia to introduce him to us.
It is no exaggeration to say that he made this concert a success. He lent us his studio’s equipment and hooked us up with a rental car agency.
Mr. Shiota provided us with almost all the information that we wanted to know, including the equipment that we could find in Ethiopia,; he gave us very tangible support.
On that day in the late afternoon, we visited Mr. Shiota’s studio.
He was in the midst of recording with a famous reggae artist.
Mr. Shiota 's parents are divorced, and his mother, who is Japanese, presently lives in Tokyo.
He has dark skin, a Japanese face, and he can speak Japanese fairly well.
Like our past four oversea tours, wherever we go, our help comes in miraculous ways.
Since everything about Ethiopia was unknown to us, we encountered a series of unknown events. Meeting Mr. Shiota was certainly help from heaven. Now matter who you ask, people say that Mr. Shiota is great. He lives in a large house despite the great economic disparity. He is a man of great success and an established reputation.
