Shauna, Terrance and I stopped into UCCB for the newest Art Exhibit. Really nice stuff. And, since we were there anyway, we wandered towards the playhouse to see what was happening with the Drumfest. We got there and decided at least Shauna would go in with the ticket for a while, and we’d wait outside in the lobby. At which point, the organizer/inventor of the Fest, Bruce Aitken, recognized Terrance and wanted to know if we were going in or not. He explained that no, I’d won one ticket but there were three of us. Bruce then said to go right in. We protested; Shauna returned just then, saying the entrance curtains were closed and she wasn’t sure if she should enter. Bruce said, in his New Zealand accent, “no no, you all go right in, there’s a couple of hours left, c’mon, I’ll lead you in if you like.” And so we marched in, and the guy in charge opened the curtain for us and said sit anywhere you like, enjoy the show! Very nice.

When we got there, Dom Famularo was on stage. The guy was a genius with those cymbals, and funny! He was obviously having the most fun ever playing around, and it came through in his playing. Then he got up and spoke, and it was wonderful. He actually mentioned my personal philosophy, which is that “You can’t love others until you love youself,” and actually connected to that to drumming in a way that made sense. I loved him.

Next was Walfredo Reyes, Jr. He started with percussion - which is apparently a different job than drumming - with a simple double-bell of some sort, and he played it off the floor and moved into long shaker sticks, which made completely different sounds depending on if you shook them long-wise or short-wise, and then he slowly started to use them to drum with on bongos and timpalas, and then he moved into just his hands, and then he had a shaker gourd, and he moved to his massive drumset with percussion bits and pieces all over, and he just blew us all away.

Near the end, he was going wild with the double-kick bass, and he ripped through the drums left-right, and then kept kicking and played the air in unison with the kicks, and then knocked his head with one stick and a wooden knuckle with the other, and it was quick and funny and great! He kept making us laugh, with talking and with playing. He played for an hour, and talked for a bit, and then played for another half an hour, pushing the “end” time way back.

When finally he finished rocking the place, they gave out some prizes and talked for a bit. Meanwhile, people were swarming the stage with chairs and drums. They set up nine chair and nine snare drums, all in a curving row, and when that was done, they announced they were going to do a finale that hadn’t been rehearsed or even done before, anywhere. Dom Famularo brainchilded it. They called for all the drummers who had played that day and who were still in the audience to come down, and they were going to play the snare drums, and hopefully do something wonderful, and with the help of the drumming gods, finish beautifully and together!

The nine drummers set up, and Walfredo took bongos, and an extra drummer took another, large drum in his lap. The first drummer started playing alone, and after a minute the next did, with a different rhythm, and the next and the next, all the way down the line, and it got wilder and wilder, and then Dom “conducted” them into something really loud, and then down really soft until it was almost a whisper, and then he started picking out drummers for short solos, and I wished really hard for one of ‘em to reach out and play on someone else’s drum, and finally the second last guy (only one woman all weekend) got up, faced his chair, looked at Dom, and suddenly started running back and forth along the row, playing on everyone’s drums, and I screamed and hooted, and by this time we were standing and jumping. When everyone was finished, Dom went to his drumset, and Walfredo to his, and then others took up the other three, and it got bigger and bigger with bass and more than just snares, and I danced and jumped and screamed, and it was SO WILD and big and pumping, and they did end together, hugely and with power and screams and massive ovation from the audience. Wild.

Whew. I’m worn out just from the telling. It was fabulous.