Ukulele Fans Plan World Record Attempt at Castro Theatre

Later this month, a bunch of local ukulele strummers will gather at the Castro Theatre with their toys/instruments in an attempt to give San Franciscans what should rightfully be ours: the world record for the largest number of people playing ukuleles and singing together.

Currently, the country holding that title in Guinness World Records is Great Britain, which is kind of disgusting. The four-stringed Hawaiian instrument, after all, was introduced to mainlanders here in San Francisco at the 1915 Pan Pacific Expo. And anyway, all the Brits could manage was 851 ukulele freaks playing together. San Francisco is a magnet for both freaks and ukulele enthusiasts, so we oughta be able to fill every single one of the Castro Theatre's 1,400 seats.

The impetus for all this local boosterizing is the Mighty Uke Roadshow, a traveling event that will come to S.F. on September 26 for the world record attempt and a screening of the Mighty Uke Movie, a documentary about the recent explosion of ukulele love. The record attempt is so important -- to both civic and national pride -- that producers from NPR will be on hand to observe it and, hopefully, broadcast San Francisco's triumph to the world. A certain local music blogger might even be there as well.

If bragging rights don't get you excited, consider that the organizers of the event will also donate proceeds from it to the Bridge School. And in addition to the legions of local strummers likely to show up, famous local and national uke players will be showing off their skills. The whole going goes down at the Castro theater at 3 p.m. Sunday, September 26. So if you want to participate, there's still plenty of time to get a ukulele and learn how to play it.

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