By all accounts, Sunday’s SoCal Slack Key Festival at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center was a great success. Major props to Mitch Chang, the show’s producer, for not only putting together a great show, but also for finding ways to continue to improve the production each year.
This year, crafty Mitch even slipped in a couple of non-slack key guitarists, an arguably risky move that ended up adding well-received variety to the show and showcasing two excellent finger-style acoustic musicians: Ed Gerhard and Jeff Linsky.
On the Hawaiian side, we enjoyed the music of Cyril Pahinui, Steve Espaniola, Sonny & Lorna Lim, Hi’ikua, Jim “Kimo West, Nathan Aweau, Shawn Ishimoto, and Kalyn Aolani. An amazing array of talent that we got to enjoy for nearly 5 hours!