Dixieland Oom-Pah-Pah

Small Beer, big sound.

And if, for some unfathomable reason, you don’t notice the music of Kleintje Pils--it’s Dutch for small beer--here at M-Wave, the Olympic speedskating venue, you almost have to notice the musicians. Clad in red, white and black striped, loose-fitting shirts, colorful neckerchiefs, blue jeans and wooden shoes, klompen, they sort of stand out here in Japan.

And that’s the whole idea.

“We try to make the people enjoy skating the way we enjoy it in Europe,” said Ruud Bakker, bass drummer and leader of the nine-piece brass band from Holland that plays an infectious kind of music--it incorporates elements of Dixieland and oom-pah-pah-- before racing begins and during ice-resurfacing intermissions.

Japanese sporting crowds tend to be considerably more polite than their European and North American counterparts, so Kleintje Pils was brought in, to be perfectly blunt, to liven up the joint. And liven it, the band does, playing for a while in the infield, then joining the spectators in the stands and playing some more.

“We’ve played everywhere in Europe at speedskating championships,” Bakker said. “A Japanese speedskating official heard us and asked us to come here. ‘We have the high technology but not the atmosphere,’ he said. So we are here for the European speedskating atmosphere.”

And speedskating isn’t all Kleintje Pils does.

“We’re also the national band for soccer,” Bakker said. “We played in America during World Cup ’94. We get invitations to play from all over the world. We are the most famous band in Holland.”

And whoever gets them, gets them cheap. Well, sort of.

“We don’t ask for any honorarium,” Bakker said. “All we ask is that they pay for the [travel] and living expenses. We are not a band for profession, but we try to make professional music.”

All of the musicians, therefore, work day jobs--Bakker manages an energy company-- and that makes for some interesting scheduling.

“It’s difficult to make it all happen, but somehow it does.” Bakker said.

The band will leave here before speedskating is over to play at a carnival back in Holland, then has gigs in Britain, Belgium and Turkey in the next few months.

Bakker proudly pointed to a small pin on his shirt, a gold crown on a background ribbon, and said, “It’s a high decoration from the queen. It only goes to a few on her birthday, to those who work for Dutch culture. She said we were ambassadors for Dutch culture.”

Yup, and speedskating culture, too.

Ask all those polite Japanese who are dancing in the aisles at the M-Wave.