Niigata!!

Our time in Niigata was wonderful!  This time we stayed at the Niigata Grand Hotel, and grand it was!

As is extremely common here, our hotel included a wedding chapel and even a little organ!

 The concert hall was fabulous.  Probably getting tired of me saying that, eh?
 

 A good portion of the rehearsal time at each hall is working out the lighting.  There's quite a bit going on at the beginning of the show, and it just takes lots of time to get all the lights ready.  We always have to line up for Sonics, spike everything, and make sure the lights are correct:

This is my setup for Sonics.  Michele has a similar setup on her side of the stage.

The stage is completely bare at the beginning of the concert, except for a mass of spikes and the two bell fans.  This is all there is:

I caught Joe fooling around, just banging away and having a ball.

(BTW, I do a heckuva lot of "banging" in Sonics, and I have a ball, too!!)

Before each concert they feed us.  Generally, we get "Bento" boxes, which are prepared, hot trays with rice, usually some meat, lots of fish, and perhaps some veggies.  I'm surprised nobody's taken any Bento pictures - that's usually a staple of the Sonos Japan tour blog. ;)

Here we are getting ready backstage and just centering ourselves for the show:

This is a sweet shot of my honey and our primo celliste, Emil Miland:

Aren't they cute?

---Jason