Jake Shimabukuro Live!

Recently, I was hanging out at home...everyone was out and I was just playing around with my Uke.  I started searching the net to find something new to learn how to play or see if any new Uke stuff was out there.  I found a link to Jake Shimabukuro's concert schedule.  I thought maybe he might play somewhere near enough to drive to, but I didn't have my hopes up being out here in the Midwest.  Then I saw he was going to play in the town right where I live (actually I live in a suburb of that town).  Excitedly I clicked on the link to see when he was going to be here.  I stared at the date in disbelief...it was today!  The concert was set to start in just over a couple hours.  I got online and looked up the tickets.  There were still some available and decent seats too, so I jumped on it.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Recently, I had the privilege of seeing this out of the ordinary orchestra consisting of eight Ukulele players from Great Britain called...The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

How eight Uke players found each other in Britain (or that there are eight Uke players in Great Britain) is, in itself, pretty amazing to me.

What surprised me even more was that the group has been playing since 1985 and has performed with as many as 12 members (and as few as six).

With eight Ukuleles ( a mix of 3 Concerts, 4 Sopranos, and one Bass Uke when I saw them, but they have used different combinations) they can produce some complicated compositions and even sound effects as displayed in their rendition of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.  They play all types of music including rock....like Nirvana's Smells Like Team Spirit. They are equal parts comedians and musicians....which makes them great to watch live. 

I saw them in the Holland Center in Omaha, NE which has some great acoustics (they sound amazingly better live than on youtube).  Some of the songs they performed that I can recall off the top of my head (it was a 2 hour show so there was a lot of songs performed) was Johnny Cash's Orange Blossom Special, the Talking Heads', Psycho Killer, Isiah Haye's Shaft, David Bowie's Life on Mars, the Sex Pistols' Anarchy, and the theme from the Beverly Hillbilly's...as you can see all over the musical genre map.  They even performed a medley of pop songs displaying their vocal talents by singing them individually, then combining them one by one until they were singing simultaneously (like how you sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat in grade school, only in their case it was 5 different songs instead of one). 

I came out of the Holland with a big smile on my face and we talked about the different performances throughout the entire drive home.  I would highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance.

Final Four, Danica Patrick, Brittini Paiva

This weeks trio is in no way related in any way, but it's the stuff I saw that caught my attention the most this week....

So Louisville is in the Championship game.  While that may not be a surprise, the fact that Wichita State almost sent them home is.  I'm guessing that more than a few columnist out there were trying to figure out a "Shockers Shock the World" headline before Louisville mounted that late game comeback.

You have to start believing in faith when stuff happens the way it does.  Louisville's Kevin Ware horribly breaks a leg against Duke.  Ware's injury gives a walk-on like Tim Henderson a chance to play in a Final Four game.  Henderson's stat line this season:  3.8 min/game, .348 FG%, .300 3P%, 0 FTs attempted, 0.1 Assists, 0 Blks, 0.8 pts/game.  It also gave Luke Hancock a chance to be a star.  Hancock averaged 7.7 pts/game.

With Louisville down 47-25, Henderson knocks down back-to-back threes to start Louisville's comeback, but it was Hancock who saved the game scoring 20, 11 coming during the comeback.  He hit the go head three that gave the Cardinals a 56-55 lead with 6:18 to play and another three to put Louisville up by 5 with 2:08 left.  Hancock was also responsible for the two assists on Henderson's threes.

Getting some made for TV movie basketball performances by Henderson and Hancock makes me think that Louisville is destined to win the National Title....that and the fact that they were considered the best team coming into the tournament.
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 Yea, Danica Patrick came in 12th...not even a top ten, but she made as many, if not more, passes than anyone on the track. 

Patrick started the race at Martinsville 43rd...last on the grid due to a motor swap after qualifying.  Many of the drivers, including her boss Tony Stewart, felt Patrick's first ever race at Martinsville was going to be "a long day."  Dale Earnharht Jr. recalled his first race at Martinsville, saying that he ran into every car including the pace car and ambulance on the way to a 36th place finish.  Even her crew chief Tony Gibson said, "I figured we could finish top 25 and be a couple laps down..."  Needless to say, all the drivers feel it's a tough track to race.

Patrick started passing cars from lap one, getting down to 27th before she was spun by Ken Schrader which put her 2 laps down.  She kept picking off cars and after a couple white flags got back on the lead lap.  She got down to 11th, but got bump passed by Brian Vickers on the final lap.  She even passed her boss, Stewart, on the way to her best driving performance in a Sprint Cup car (yea, she had a higher finish at Daytona, but this was a better performance of driving skill).

Remember that this is a lady who supposedly doesn't know how to drive.
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Who the heck is Brittini Paiva?

Paiva is a ukelele player from Hilo, Hawaii.  On one of her early albums she did a rendition of Santana's "Samba Pa Ti," one of my favorites when I was a kid.  In February Santana played in Honolulu's Blaisdell Arena.  During the concert, Carlos Santana called Brittini onto the stage.  I saw the video for the first time this weekend.  They start off a little rough, not quite in sync, but got it together to make musical magic.  The video starts blurry but clears up around the 1:19 mark.

Paiva and Santana, Samba Pa Ti Duet.