On Saturday July 24, Chibi Taiko kicked off the festivities at the grand opening on the newly-refurbished Oppenheimer Park in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The park, former home to the legendary Asahi baseball team, sits on Powell Street, the prewar home of Vancouver’s Japanese Canadian community. Making the occasion particularly special to our group was the fact that we were unveiling our new set of beautiful taiko, made for us by Kato Taiko in California. Incredibly, not only was it the first time we played out new drums in public, it was the first time we played them at all . . .  Happily, they look and sound awesome!

If you look at the photo below this post, and compare the drums, our new drums look remarkably similar to Betcha Taiko’s gorgeous drums.