Aloha live concert Seattle

Date: 7 Jul 2003 03:51:25 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.music.hawaiian
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Hello! The Summer Nights at the Pier had Amy and Willie K in concert
on Saturday night, and it was wonderful! Very relaxed, like a backyard
luau! The opening act was Makana, and I became very intrigued by this
artist. First of all, he wore leather pants and a dark shirt opened
wide. I guess he is a world music artist more than hawaiian as I
didn't hear much hawaiian slack key. I wondered if we were his
sounding board for new material? Perhaps he was branching out if he
usually plays slack key. Is he even remotely hawaiian? I came for
hawaiian music, was that wrong to want? I don't care for world music
where they use a bit of this and a bit of that, like mixing fine
bottles of wine into one big punch bowl. He sang one silly folksy
humourous song about his girlfriend asking him to move out. With
references to sex all over the house, and philipino gardeners, which
is dullishly immature to me. All in all, I was quite irritated by this
unrefined experimenting young artist. Dunno if it's youth, dunno if
it's his personality type, but his lack of respect of a willing
listening ear was annoying. Music is a gift, and you woo your listener
with it, you don't preach, don't give an opinion, don't ask of your
audience anything but an appreciation of your best and your best isn't
some slapped together music you think we might get a kick out of.
Waste of time. But, Amy's rich voice and Willies desire to entertain
his audience with homey stories and ialand flavah was fun. I can't
shake this feeling though, that these artists don't like being pegged
as ONLY hawaiian music artists, what's all this desire to sing "Autumn
Leaves" or get into other countries music. What is WRONG with only
being a Hawaiian Music artist. A good voice is a dime a dozen, and so
is good mechanical ability with an instrument, can't stress enough how
a true generosity and humbleness towards your audience can help.