Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo (Phew!)

I bought tickets and went to the Tattoo. Unfortunately, I went alone :( Fortunately, this meant I got amazing seats. I was about 8 rows up and just left of center. Best seats in the house.

What is the Tattoo, you ask? Well, it has nothing to do with permanent body art and Tweety Bird. Traditionally, a Military Tattoo is a military drum performance, but it has evolved into a demonstration of arms and military bands in general. The Royal Nova Scotia Tattoo is the largest of its kind in the world with over 2000 performers. Interspersed with the military shows are other acts, some affiliated with the military or police, and some not. It was thoroughly enjoyable and one of the most fun things I've done. There's another fairly large Tattoo in Norfolk, Virginia, and a few other scattered near large military populations. Chris was stationed in Norfolk for awhile. I wonder why we never went. Probably because I have to rely on Chris to tell me things.

Obviously the show opened with the requisite Canadian military showing.
There were actually a few Canadian bands - a pipe and drum corps and a few traditional ones from Ottawa and around Canada. The mounties were there showing off their mad skillz, marching in formation with bayonets out. That's them in front.

Next, we moved on to the Danes. Their show started with a little movie about how some theives stole instruments and then canoed across the ocean to Halifax being chased by the military band. It was actually pretty funny. So their show opened with the theives racing onto the floor who then started to play a jazzy little number:

Well then the band caught up with them, they were forced to do push-ups and run around and then placed in the band. They played a military piece and the James Bond theme.

There were bands from I think 11 different countries. I obviouslly won't post them all here. They all look the same anyway. There were a bunch of pipe and drum bands:

And a lot of really ridiculous drumming:

And then the fife and drum band from Massachussets. They were amazing.

I was surprised that the Marine Corps band didn't make an appearance. I asked one of my coworkers who loves the Tattoo and he said that they usually do come, so he was surprised that they weren't there either. If you ever get a chance to see the Marine Corps band in action, you should, because they're really good. Even more so, you should go and see a drill competition. There are usually competitions among ROTCs and JROTCs, but the Marine Corps has a ridiculously impressive silent drill team. They're precise and there are no calls or whistles telling them when to move, unlike a lot of other drill teams. And I wouldn't be a good Navy future-wife without posting a video of the Navy drill team. Texas A&M has an incredible drill team, most famous for this.

OK, enough of my plug. Back to the Tattoo. To break up the band numbers, they had little competitions. One was an obstacle course between a Navy team and an Army team.

They were waiting until of them crouched down before they shot at a target and then raced back to the stage.

Very exciting. They also had this seriously impressive one where they took apart a jeep and then put it all back together again.

Wha??? And it worked too! They drove off with it.

The stunt team from the Hamburg police where also there, entertaining the crowd. They did crazy tricks like flipping people from one bike to the other, head stands, and wild moves.

He took off the wheel while they were tilted and then put it back on again!

That's 17 people on 3 bikes. The guys on the front leaning forward hopped on after the rest all came out.

There were also a ton of gymnastics numbers. There was one with these cute little girls with Canadian flag-ish leotards that ran around and did flips and stuff. Didn't get a picture. I did get pictures of a synchronized gymnastics display. They were affiliated with the French police. Insert your favourite French joke here. Either way you slice it, though, it was really cool. They moved to whistle calls by the guy in uniform in the front.

Check out those biceps

There were rhythmic gymnasts from Estonia, but what made it really cool is that there was a girl doing aeriel silks or tissu. Very Cirque du Soleil.

There was a gigantic choir as well as a smaller children's choir and 3 professional singers that sang a few solos. They were really good.

After intermission came more group stuff and less showcasing of individual bands. It opened with a tribute to veterans that had me almost in tears. The lady next to me who's been to 11 Tattoos says that last year everyone was crying it was so moving.

It started off with soldiers in old WWII uniforms walking out with torches and then modern military came and took the flame, honoring the Canadian soldiers who are currently in Afghanistan. Then they showed this moving video of the Highway of Heroes. Every time a Canadian soldier is killed, they fly his or her body home to Trenton, Ontario (which is actually really close to where my dad grew up), and a motorcade takes the body to Toronto. People started showing up without being asked on overpasses with flags and signs to see the soldiers home, cheering and saluting (if they were former military or in the police or something) in order to honor the fallen soldiers. At this point, everyone cried.

So to rev people back up again, they did a rousing Highland number. This place is really proud of its Scottish heritage. Pretty much everyone here has some kind of Scottish ancestry, so there's lots of bagpipes and Highland dancing.


There were a few other numbers, and then the entire cast of the Tattoo entered onto the floor. This is what 2,000 performers looks like:
There was a bunch of salutes to the honored guests which included the commander of the joint forces in Afghanistan (or something like that).

This guy had to say "Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo present arms!" a lot.

And then it was over :( It was a 3 hour show, so I felt I got my money's worth. I went down and wanted to take pictures with people. I've decided that I've got to just hand my camera off if I ever want to have myself in any pictures. So I went up to a mountie to take a picture with her and while we were getting ready to smile, 2 other mounties just ran up and got into the picture! Sorry it's so blurry. The problem with handing the camera off is that people don't know how to use it.

I also took a picture with this bagpiper from Montrael who was soooo nice! He was hysterical and just a big teddy bear. Who couldn't love this guy with his big smile?

Last I took a picture with these TALL British gaurds. Don't let their fierce nature fool you. They were just busy joking around and teasing each other when I walked up, then they snapped to attention for my picture. You can even see the guy on the right starting to smirk. He burst out laughing as soon as the picture was taken. I'm surprised he even made it through the picture since the soldier taking the picture was cracking jokes the whole time.

So that was the Tattoo! So fun! The next day at work, one of the piping bands was playing in the rain and marching around the pier, presumably to advertise and sell more tickets. They walked right in front of my office! This was taken from my window:
I swear, this harbour conspires to make sure I get no work accomplished. 'Til next time!