"Jake Shimabukuro is not the first young virtuoso to be hailed as the 'next Jimi Hendrix' or the 'new Eddie Van Halen.' Nor is he the first to tackle such demanding pieces as Chick Corea's 'Spain' or Franz Schubert's 'Ave Maria', to cite two of the highlights during his area headlining debut concert Wednesday night at Blind Melons in Pacific Beach. However, Shimabukuro (pronounced: She-ma-boo-koo-row) is surely the first to earn such heady comparisons – and to master such challenging repertoire – by performing solely on a ukulele, the traditional four-stringed instrument of his native Hawaii. And while he still needs to hone his songwriting skills to match his astonishing technique, his crowd-pleasing solo show was dazzling enough to suggest that stardom is in the offing for this 29-year-old Honolulu marvel." -- George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune (April 14, 2006)
Fresh off of his critically-acclaimed support of Jimmy Buffet's latest tour, Jake Simabukuro mounts his own, stopping at The Shedd to deliver his own, unique version of what the new generation of stunning ukulele masters can do. This is most definitely not a concert to miss.