THE ancient Viking city of Waterford has lost the run of itself. Reginald's Tower which has withstood assaults by both Strongbow and Perkin Warbeck, trembles as the mighty reverberations of the Sen Ryo Taiko drummers from Japan beat outside its walls. A slingshot away, beside the spot where in 1274 lived Stephen De Fulburn, Justiciar of Ireland, a six foot three acrobat with lilac hair swallows the output of blazing torches.
Spraoi is an annual street carnival dedicated to rhythm. Participants have come from as far away as Ghana and Osaka in Japan. Waterford, with its medieval, European charm, its winding side streets and its proud mall, is the ideal place for such an outdoor festival where you can wander along streets named Greyfriars and Lady Lane, Beau Street and Spring Garden Alley. In the 18th century, travellers wrote that in all of Europe, only the quay in Messina surpassed that of Waterford.
Outside McCluskey's restaurant - a gem - in High Street, there's a 10 piece ebony steel band from Notting Hill playing Galway Bay. Over in the Apple Market, Reality Sound from London is making the very pips of the apples revolve in their cores. The music comes entirely from synthesisers, packed into the back of a white van, with vocal accompaniment by M.C. Ishe, a Jamaican from north London. Everything flexes up and down with the beat: the van, Gino's pizza restaurant, the rows of empty pint glasses that have been left neatly on the window sills of houses.
From lunchtime each day during Spraoi, dozens of gigs take place in most of Waterford's pubs. All the outdoor performances are free. There are book readings for children throughout the town, a puppet show, Punch and Judy, face painters, street artists and food stalls. Acrobats from the UK based Swamp Circus make you gasp and occasionally wince with their contortions.
Not so long ago men in bowler hats bought and sold pigs on Ballybricken Green. Now you can sit here under the south east's benign sun and deal with the sounds from the Waterford City Brass. Then as the sun sets and the moon lays down a plate of nickel on the River Suir, be lured along the river by the drumbeats of the East.
SEN Ryo Taiko are a group of farmers who play drums from Shigo, near Osaka. We're not talking genteel tympany here. These oriental gentlemen don't mess around with bongo drums or tambourines. What they do is launch blood curdling attacks on wooden drums that, set on their sides, look like a reclining herd of adult buffaloes. Wielding their drumsticks in great arcs of warrior like intent, the bodies of the drummers glisten with sweat under the street lights of Rose Lane.
"They've saved hard for this trip," says Robert Shortt, the Irishman who organised the trip and who for two years taught English in Japan. It's the first time that any of the nine drummers - five men, four women - have been in Europe. They prefer red beer with a head on it rather than stout," says Robert.
Yoshiko Ogazaki is a fruit farmer from Shigo. Questions about acres meet polite puzzlement. Yoshiko grows his persimmon on the tiered ridges of a volcanic mountain. Now with one more gig to play before he goes to bed, the highlight of his trip will be a round of golf in Waterford. If he hits the ball the same way as he whacks his drum, he'll break the course record.
The climax of the weekend is Ragnorak, a Norse legend, based on their idea of Armageddon. Gods battle for the soul of the last, great Norse chieftain. In the final tumult, on Sunday night, the rainbow bridge connecting the human world to that of the gods explodes in a spectacular display of fireworks.
But to my mind the perfect hour is spent in the ruins of the 13th century French church in Greyfriars with the highly accomplished Cafe Orchestra. These are four lads from Dublin who make hilarious improvisations of everything from Gershwin to gypsy music.
As the sun sets on the red sandstone of this exquisite Huguenot building, you feel within you ripples of kinship going back over the centuries. I expect the last time there was a standing ovation in this spot was when Sir Neal O'Neill, companion of James II, arrived back in one piece from the Battle of the Boyne.
