The mall gig: Yes, we have arrived.

You know, when you start out with a new community group, you will almost inevitably encounter "the mall gig." This staple of cash-strapped, publicity-hungry non-affiliated groups everywhere is always fun. It seems that there're an endless supply of shopping centers that, when Christmas rolls around, have an insatiable appetite for low-budget musical groups to (theoretically) inspire their patrons to greater heights of consumerism. I guess this means there is a relationship between "Jingle Bells" and a shopper's wallet. Whatever.

And, for some reason, mall directors look at handbells and immediately see dollar signs. Don't ask me why! (Handbells are for Christmas!)

So, in the typical mall gig, you end up arriving at the venue at the wrong entrance (invariably). You stand around looking confused. After a suitable period of vexation, the mall gods are appeased and the entertainment coordinator materializes out of the mass of huddled shoppers wearing an exasperated look and trots you through the entire mall. It's a little slow because you're shlepping all your stuff, naturally.

Just before you think you'll collapse and your fingers will never uncrimp from their permanently clawed position (bell cases are heavy!), you finally reach the designated performance spot. Of course there's only 9 feet and you need 18, but, hey, be flexible. Various angles, configurations... you know the drill. Eventually you shoehorn yourself into the pathetically inadequite performance space and set up. When all is said and done, you're ready to play.

Then the fun part - you get to play in a mall! With tons of milling shoppers who really don't care about you walking by, slightly turning their heads in vague disinterest, and then continuing on their slavish, consumer search for gifts to one-up their relatives. Oh, joy.

You play your set (15 minutes or so) the first two times, and then the director walks up: Can't you play "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?" Apparently, they have a big Christmas lingerie sale that day, and he thinks this song would be a major draw. After letting him down gently because, no, you can't play that, you go back to playing your set a few more times. Then you pack up and leave. If you're lucky, somebody was able to bring the shlepmobile to the right entrance so you don't have to trek the whole length of the mall again (remember the cramped fingers?). Your first mall gig - your group earned $150. Woo-hoo!

Well, I haven't played a mall gig in a while, and I guess it was my time again in purgatory, because near the end of our rehearsal in Sendai, Jim comes to me and says, "We have to stop at 6:00 because you're going to the mall to play 'Sakura'." R-i-i-i-g-h-t. I didn't exactly sense an interrogative in there, so all I could do is nod my head. But, sheesh, I was tired. We'd been on the road since 6:30 AM, with a trip to Fukushima, a television show, another train ride to Sendai, then a stressful rehearsal with the violinist and the local all-girl double choir group. And the rehearsal with the violinist had been stressful because the four of us accompanying him in "Ave Maria" had to transpose on the spot since we had apparently learned the quartet in the wrong key! Yeah, he knew it in F and we had learned it in G. A whole step sounds easy enough, but those noodle-noodle sixteenths fly by pretty quickly, and it's a quartet, so we're moving all over the place as the line goes up and down. Mentally stressful!

(BTW, we played Jingle Bells for the TV show, with Michael being interviewed by a translator. This was good.

Interviewer: "So, what are these instruments you play?"

Michael: "We're an English handbell ensemble, and these are the instruments we play. [point at bells] So, we play... English handbells."

[pregnant pause]

Michael: "Merry Christmas!"

Fortunately the translator's rendition of that appeared to not faithfully render Michael's response.)

Turns out that the publicist at the concert hall (or somebody) had decided that sticking us in the outdoor mall would be a good way to advertize the concert on the next day. Actually, it was a good idea! But at the time I was just a little miffed that we weren't even asked and that the four of us were being singled out for this extra duty with no preparation.

OK, so we figure out we're going to the mall. At the appointed time, the six of us (Tamamura-san, Nohoko-san, Michael, Sunghee, Josh, and I) bundle into two taxis and drive for 10 minutes to a location in a freakin' huge outdoor mall in downtown Sendai. Many, many blocks long in two directions, this is what the Mall of America would look like if you took all the stores and laid them out along two intersecting streets, each extending blocks in either direction. (Turns out we could have just walked to the area, since the taxi had to fight terrible traffic due to the first night of the "20th Annual Sendai Festival of Starlight," during which they basically wire the heck out of the trees along the boulevard that marks the end of the mall and along with the concert hall sits. The foot and driving traffic were horrendous.) We walked some of this mall today, and it really is fun.

We finally make it our performance location. They've built this cute little red felt-covered stage, with an arch of green baloons and some pine trees in the background. The stage is *very* small, and round, so it's a good thing the piece we played, "Sakura", only requires four ringers and is played in a circle. (This is a pretty cool piece, being Jim's blending of English change ringing and the famous Japanese folk melody. Maybe I'll describe it later.) While we're getting ready, all of the assistants (maybe six of them) begin donning goofy Christmas gear, like flashy santa hats and reindeer ears for the girls. One guy actually gets into a santa suit. Oh, yeah - I remembered from our first trip that low-level flunkies for these publicity stunts put on little costumes and yell at people until the poor shoppers relent and take whatever marketing materials they're handing out. (Kinda freaked me out the first time we encountered that - I distinctly remember avoiding the store that had this kind of "advertising".)

The emcee brings up his mike and begins to rapidly belt out Japanese while we stand there and look pretty. Finally, we get the cue ("please start playing now, thank you") and launch into our one-minute rendition of Sakura. We finish and everybody claps. A very few mall passers-by stop to listen, but most actively avoid the yelling, overly-cheerful flunkies trying to hand out concert flyers.

We start up again, playing Sakura again - hey, it's all we know for four people with 10 bells - and it seems to go fine. We get a few more people. We play again, and then we get a little break. The local newspaper has sent a photographer, and he wants some shots. Some little girl appears out of nowhere and gets put on stage, probably to add a "cuteness" factor to our mugs. Josh leans down and gives the five-year old a bell and sorta shows her how to play. She finally makes a sound, and everybody smiles. Ah, isn't that sweet?? :)

We do some airbelling to get a usable picture (which we do, BTW - we showed up in the paper the next day - I doubt we would have without the little tyke their to endear us). After that, we go back to playing, but this time in a straight line. Ugh, it's hard to play a piece that's designed for a circle in a straight line!

While we're playing Sakura for the fourth time, our producer, Tamamura-san, is conversing intently with the liaison at the mall. My imagined conversation goes something like this:

Mall guy: "This piece is short. I can hardly hear the melody. Can't they play 'Happy X'mas?'"

Tamamura-san: "No, they can't play that piece with only four ringers." (Yes, we did play "Happy X'mas" on this tour)

Mall guy: "Hmm. Do they know anything else?"

Tamamura-san: "No, they only know 'Sakura'. Forgive them - they're only westerners."

Well, the upshot is that on my first mall gig in over 10 years, we played a single, one-minute piece six times. Not exactly high art! But, hey, the audience for the next day's concert was 1,100, so I'm not complainin'.

You young community handbell ringers - see what you have to look forward to??

---Jason