What a jam-packed day it was. We did wake up slowly which was a lovely luxury. We got to the Ukefest and did a workshop. Actually, it was mostly Brian’s workshop… he did the planning and he made handouts, and conducted it for the most part. I got to sing, over and over, for an appreciative group. The workshop was on accompanying a voice with ukulele.

We used the song For Me and My Gal” as the song we worked with. The folks seemed to really like that (it is still pretty well known, and well-loved).

I was honored to see a few of the other performers of the weekend, in our workshop. That was special to me.

We let the attendees know (maybe those who read my blog because they love ukuleles, didn’t know this either) that Brian has put up a whole bunch of songs on our Fabulous Heftones website… lyrics, chords, photo of sheet music cover when available, and link to our version of the song. And when at all possible, he even links to other versions of the song out there in downloadable form, usually the original recording where we learned the song.

This is possible for us to do… that is, post this information on the songs, because so far all our albums (four for Brian as a soloist, and our joint Moon June Spoon project) are all songs we found to be the right dates to be in the public domain. The new “In the Garden” CD that we are working on now, is mostly music 1923 and later, so we will perhaps only be able to post information on one song when that comes out.

So… anyway, the workshop ended and we went on to other things. I went down and took the hula class as I had done last year. We have been lucky, both last year and this were so warm we could hula outdoors. Today it stayed 73-75 degrees F from noon until 7pm. After wearing my winter coat a good handful of times in the last week or so, this seems almost surreal to be so warm. I loved it! I danced barefoot outside and was very comfortable, in very late October. Maybe Indianapolis is more south of Lansing than I imagined!

After that, I spent time talking to a few vendors, listening to part of the open mic, playing jam tunes with friends in the lobby and planning dinner. We ended up agreeing to meet at 5pm at Bucci di Beppo (it’s an Italian food chain, and Sara and I had a good experience there in Chicago last August). In the end we had ten folks at dinner, and since this restaurant specializes in family-style meals, we all had a chance to taste several different dishes if we chose. I’m in love with the garlic escarole (greens) which is *really* garlicky. I liked that more than anything else. And the company was just great.

After dinner we walked the five blocks to the Veterans Memorial building where the evening concerts are being held this year. The building is very imposing outside, it sort of looks like maybe you could not even go indoors… but inside it was a highly-ornamented government building similar to those I have seen in Chicago. The theatre was incredibly decorated including marble at the front of the room, with a HUGE photo of a World War I general (drat, I’m going blank on his name right now) as the backdrop of the stage. It was really imposing, actually… even one of the performers mentioned it. It reminded me of those huge photos of Chairman Mao (maybe the fact that this one was black and white helped that association) or something… otherworldly to me, a woman with very little exposure to military things.

But it was definitely a great theatre, just the right size, excellent sound, and intimate enough even for a larger crowd than they had last year (last year’s auditorium held 240 if I recall properly).

After the concert, I went back to the room to sleep. Brian went to the Irish pub where they planned to jam into the early hours of the morning. The group will go there again tomorrow night, and I figure I’ll go then. Tomorrow we’ll have finished our concert performance and I’ll not have as many things to worry about/take care of, and I can truly enjoy being there.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 30th, 2004 at 12:59 amand is filed under Dance and Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.