DAMIEN'S JAM SESSION

Growing up, playing an instrument was never my strong suit. It was like I almost had a phobia against musical instruments. I always felt my fingers were too fat to be strumming an ukulele. I thought I’d catch a major case of arthritis half way thru a song on the piano. And I truly believed I’d end up gasping for air if I ever played something from the woodwind section. It’s for those reasons why I stayed on the field or on the court and it’s for those reasons why I’m very proud of Damien playing the clarinet in the school band.

Damien and his fellow band mates from Lokelani Intermediate School had a concert at Ace Hardware Store for their 60^th Anniversary. It’s quite unfortunate that I’ve never heard Damien play before but so far every concert takes place when I’ve been working. Things were luckily different this time around. Because I was getting Chuy showered up and ready to go, I got there about 15 minutes late. I was slightly panicking because I didn’t know if Ace allows pets in the store, luckily they did.

Damien and the band did really good. The kids played had their set up in the corner of the store and the parents and the rest of the audience flooded the aisles and took up almost every available chair. They played for about 2 hours with various genres of songs. Honestly, I didn’t know any of the songs other than 1. A few of the songs that they did was “Cold Water Crossing”, “Don’t Stop Believing”, and “Fairest of the Fair”. The only song that I knew from their playlist was Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are”. Between songs performed by the entire band, the Lokelani students entertained us with the 8^th graders performing with their ukulele and dancing hula for us. They were great.

DAMIEN ON HIS CLARINET. BACK RIGHT CORNER

I’m so proud that Damien is in his school’s band. It’s been said that music in a child’s life stimulates their brain and gives them a higher IQ. I’m sure that statement is true but I was wondering if I’m able to attend more of Damien’s concerts would their intelligence rub off on me. Let’s find out.