Jake Shimabukuro is touring the US at the moment. Uke Hunt’s roving reporters Shawn and Lonna B filed this review from Chicago.
Jake Shimabukuro
Old Town School of Folk Music
Chicago, IL
4/26/08
Early show
Set List
Let’s Dance
Dragon
Me and Shirley T
In My Life
Sakura, Sakura
Going to California
Blue Roses Falling
Orange World
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Ave Maria
Saturday, April 26th, renowned ukulele slinger Jake Shimabukuro made his second appearance at the school’s Gary & Laura Maurer Concert Hall at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music. Old Town is the largest independent community arts school in the United States, offering not less than eight courses relating to the ukulele as well as a music store fairly crammed with ukuleles and other instruments.
We’d never seen Jake before, and we’d never been to the Old Town School either. We live three hours away in Indianapolis, Indiana. But if you play the ukulele and have the chance to see a performer of Jake’s caliber, you drop the kids at mom’s, gas up the car, pack up some smokes and a change of booze and off you go.
The venue exceeded expectations. As a community run venture, the vibe was very positive – none of that Clear Channel taint at all. Excellent beers were available and availed of. The hall itself featured sparkling acoustics and 250 seats, each of which was within 45 feet of the stage. We sat front row center in the balcony.
Alas, there was an opening act. Terrifically, it turned out to be husband and wife team Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion. Sarah Lee (she of Arlo and Woody descent) and Johnny charmed the crowd for an hour with their spare, acoustic numbers and witty (if obligatory) folk stage patter.
After a chance to replace our empty beers with full ones, it was finally Jakulele time. Jake Shimabukuro is easily the best known and most recognized face of modern ukulele and it’s not for nothing. Throughout the evening, he embellished his already intricate arrangements, lifting many songs stratospherically higher than their written form.
He opened with Let’s Dance, and soon rendered his forearm and hand a flesh-colored blur. He introduced his next song, Dragon, as having been inspired by Bruce Lee and Eddie Van Halen, and the ensuing fretboard fireworks did more than justice to those two worthies. Me and Shirley T and In My Life, the Lennon/McCartney song which serves as the title track on Jake’s latest cd, followed.
As he was introducing Sakura, Jake recalled the experience of hearing this traditional Japanese song played on a thirteen stringed instrument, the koto. He admitted to locking himself in his room for days at a time trying to turn his four strings into 13. Jake’s next choice in song was Going To California, which he proclaimed to be one of his favorite Jimmy Page songs. The mood mellowed out a bit as Jake played Blue Roses Falling, only to pick back up with a slamming version of Orange World. Confessing a predilection for such behavior, Jake admitted to having again locked himself in his room, this time after sharing the stage with banjo legend Bela Fleck. He joked that playing a bluegrass tune was a good way to ‘get it all out of your system’, and then did just that, peeling off finger rolls at a blinding clip while remembering to quote “Dueling Banjos” as a capper. Before hitting us with Gently Weeps, Jake told the story of making that now web famous video in Central Park, an event Jake believes changed his life.
As there was a second performance scheduled, there wasn’t time for a proper version of the encore ritual, so Jake simply remained onstage until the applause died down long enough for him to introduce the final number as having been written by a friend of his from Hawaii, Franz Schubert. A crystalline version of Ave Maria closed the show.
Afterwards, Jake made himself available for photos and autographs, which, being utterly shameless in every way we were pleased to take advantage of. Any hopes we’d had about being the coolest members of the audience were devastatingly crushed when we had the good fortune to meet up with the Australian couple Bosko and Honey (on their Ukulele Safari), as well as YouTube ukemeister and Chicago native, Seeso. They’d stopped selling beer at the concessions stand, so we returned to our hotel, congratulated ourselves on having the great sense to make the trip, and, well, you know.
Shawn and LonnaB
You can find Jake’s remaining tour dates here.
Lonna and Shawn, excellent review. That was a great night, wasn’t it?
It was a pleasure and a delight to have met you both. Thanks for the beer. Look me up whenever you’re in Chicago.
Peace.