Jake at the UH Hilo, May 17, 2009

at some point yesterday, after combing the interweb and calling both the Y and the UH box office, it became even more unclear to me whether the concert was to start at 5:30 or 7pm. we left the house at 6pm and it took us 15 min to get there. it had started at 5:30..., and alas we had missed the first act, the Waiakea Intermediate School Ukulele Band! but we arrived at the first intermission so we bought tx anyway and went in just as kids were streaming out, ukes in hand.

each intermission featured an MC lady at the podium, talking about the Y's Men and Women (all profits went to them in this benefit show), giving out raffle prizes, honoring volunteers at the Y. the audience seemed mostly local and part of that Y community, felt very home town.

second act was Hiway, a 6-piece cover band, at least one guy was high school age, so they were young. two ukes, drums, electric guitar (a les paul!), keyboards and bass (this guy was incredible on the funky/disco set!). style was diverse; hawaiian, pop, country, reggae, cat stevens, disco, funk. great vocals from three of them switching leads, very enjoyable. jake joined them for the last song.

jake was wearing a plain white t-shirt, black hat, jeans and sneakers (and the pink lei they gave all the performers as they took the stage). he was super psyched, full of stories, inspiration about 'music is good medicine', music in education, and generally either hopping around or sitting on a stool in some kind of ecstasy. here's the set list for the most part, as i remember (not in order):

a montoya inspired flamenco (update: this was called, 'Let's Dance')
Dragon (inspired by bruce lee and eddie van halen, featuring the iconic van halen 'tapping' technique. wow!)
Me and Shirley T.
Piano-Forte
Five Dollars Unleaded
Thriller (no white glove though)
Sakura Sakura (inspired by the koto, he really evokes the koto sound, incredible)
Help!
In My Life (slowly with perfectly still moments of pause, my favorite of the night. tears of joy.)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (his version has evolved since his ukulele disco video in central park, fantastic)
Crazy G
snippet of Purple Haze! (it's pretty clear he can play ANYTHING on the ukulele)

i was alternately inspired and dismayed (as the last time when sandy and i saw him). he is so freaking good, you never want to pick up the uke again! but i was completely inspired by his thoughts on transcribing to the uke, that the range of the traditionally tuned uke is middle C and then two octaves above. he talked about writing piano-forte on the piano with that in mind, then transcribing it back to the uke. this approach really struck me, as i never thought of it that way, and i feel like i really learned something valuable to help me in my own ukulele explorations.

we missed you sandy, wished you had been with us! and you really were in spirit at least.