The wife and I made a 3 1/2 hour drive to see Jake in Springfield, Illinois. It would have been worth it if we had to make a 30 1/2 hour drive. The venue was very cool, in that it held only 250 people, or so. The sound was so crystal clear. And of course, Jake blew everyone away in a 90 minute show.
He played a lot of the usuals but also played Ukelele Five-O and Go For Broke. My favorite was "In My Life" simply because of the emotion that poured out of that soundhole, but the overall crowd favorites were Bohemian Rhapsody and his updated version of WMGGW (very different improv, but very, very cool). Of course he got the Standing "O" and for an encore said, "Let's have some fun!", and then proceeded to announce he was going to give his first public performance of "Don't Stop Believin'". He cautioned that is was still a work-in-progress, but it sounded pretty darned good to me.
I had brought my Uke to be signed, but at the end of the concert Jake didn't make any mention of a "meet and greet" so my initial thought was disappointment. But as the crowd emptied out there were about 5 of us left there holding uke cases, and someone took the leadership to start to go back behind the curtain, and the rest followed. As anyone who has ever met the man knows, he immediately came out and was very gracious with his time to each individual. When I got my chance to talk with him after acting like a babbling idiot gushing all over him, I then asked him if the reports of his music book finally coming out in April were true. Not only did he say it was true, but that he thought it would be much sooner than that. Said the tabs are being checked now. I also asked if he planned to produce more lessons for the Ipad OnTheMusicPath App. He was not very encouraging there, and added that he had started to work on an instructional DVD, but found out it was very hard to do. Got my uke signed, wife took some great pictures, and as we turned around to go out saw the line had gotten considerably longer. What a great experience.
When I watched him on stage my thoughts were, this man is not human. When I met him my thoughts were, this man is incredibly humane.