Musical Weekend

On Friday, I drove to Berwyn, Ill., to see my nephew's band, Sons of Fathers, at FitzGerald's, a venerable venue in the near western suburbs. They were playing as part of FitzGerald's American Music Festival, one of the first acts to take to the stage, doing two sets. My nephew Dees is their drummer, and all together the lads -- I can't help thinking of them that way, though of course they're all grown men in their 20s -- have a lot of talent and energy, and put on an enjoyable show.



On Sunday, Yuriko and I went to Ravinia on the North Shore, another venerable Chicago-area venue, to see Jake Shimabukuro, four-string Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso. He too is young (that is, in his early 30s), with talent and energy. It's astonishing what he made that ukulele do -- an instrument, as he joked at one point, that invites low expectations.