Tozai to the E

Three months ago, exhausted after a long day of work and a hard hour of voice lessons, Lito and I sat at the counter facing the window, looking out over the city below us. A decision needed to be made.

"You know, I've been really busy lately. I don't think I can put in the time to really do a good job at this."

"I've been feeling the same way. But I'd like to do it if we can."

"Sure, I just don't want to commit to something I don't have the time to deliver on."

"Look, why don't we just do it for fun... it'll be good practice, and if we lose, no big deal. We'll just do the best we can."

"Ok, I'm in."

And thus the two-man vocal duo, "Tozai Express", was born.



You can imagine my surprise when we were chosen to go on to the semifinals in the Miki Gakki 2008 Duet Competition. Or perhaps you imagined it when I blogged about it about a month ago.

As the date of the semifinals drew near, we both found ourselves caught up with other things, busy, seldom able to get together to practice. We squeezed in some rehearsals at each other's houses late at night, or in hurried half-hour sessions after our voice lessons and before he had to run off to other rehearsals.

In our second-to-last rehearsal, we totally mixed things up, throwing in alternating rap and voice percussion parts during the bridge. In the last days before the competition I found myself frantically practicing my rap, quietly in my room, at 3am...

The competition itself was an incredible production. The lighting systems were amazing, and the event started off with a video worthy of network TV pre-Olympics hype. Slow-motion shots of last year's competitors singing their hearts out, and the winners overcome with tears of joy, powerfully narrated with a moving voiceover and triumphant background music. A bit dramatic, but it set the stage well.



Many of the other groups were quite amazing, and after about five groups had gone, we had already conceded defeat. These people were amazing singers, with tightly choreographed moves and meticulous costumes. They had obviously spent long hours practicing and it paid off. The genres were spread across the board, ranging from Disney songs to traditional Hawaiian music, to cutesy teeny-bopper music and Aretha Franklin.

We went on stage 10th out of 30 groups, and I was far more nervous than I had anticipated (considering that I perform on stage about once a month). This was evident in the fact that, standing in the middle of the stage in the blazing spotlights, in front of hundreds of people, with our backing track blasting from the massive speaker racks to either side, the song barely begun, I noticed something...

... nobody was singing!

And then I noticed something else...

... I was the one who was supposed to be singing!

Whatever my frantic heartrate had been a moment before, it spiked severalfold as I realized I had just ruined the song we had been practicing for months, and we hadn't even finished the first verse!

At the same time, though, it was like a pressure valve had been released... I had already screwed up the song, and we had already lost. So basically it was the two of us on stage with a captive audience for another 4.5 minutes. There was nothing for us to do but rock out and have fun!



Of course the most challenging part came afterwards, when they interviewed us on stage in Japanese... I ended up saying some stuff that sounded kinda ridiculous, but we got some laughs from the audience, so it was all good. Except that my Japanese teacher happened to be in the audience as well... I'm gonna get it on Friday! :P

Anyway, our friends were very supportive and everybody said we did a great job. There were still around 4 hours of performances to sit through before hearing the results, and most of my friends left soon after we finished.

Finally, it came time to announce the winners. By this time I had made a mental estimate of about a 35% chance of us being selected among the top 8 groups, on the off-chance that the judges decided to be forgiving of my brainfart at the beginning of the song.

There was more production drama, and they built up lots of tension in the style of any good awards show. As they were about to announce the winners, they rattled a bunch of stuff off in really fast Japanese, and I totally missed it. But Lito and I agreed that even if we did get chosen, we could just follow the lead of whoever got chosen before us.

And then they announced the first winners: "Number 10, Tozai Express"...

...

numb shock

...

"Dude, that's us"

...

"Really?!"

"What the @#$%^&?"

We stumbled up onto the stage, not knowing what to make of this.

The crowd was cheering wildly, and we both bowed. Then one of the judges came up and presented us each with ... a medal! Standing there in our vests, bowing our heads to receive our medals, the only image in my mind was of the last scene in Star Wars. Sans Princess Leia of course. ;)



So that's it. We're going to the finals!! We're really going to try to start early and do a solid job this time. This is so awesome.

A heartfelt thanks to all our friends who came to support us. If anybody wants to come cheer for us at the finals on June 8, drop me an email!