Natural Vibrations reunites for Bishop Museum concert

As Natural Vibrations prepares for a highly anticipated reunion concert this weekend, Vibes’ founder, guitarist and spokesman Wayne Enos wants to set the record straight.

The reunion is not about members setting differences aside, as some have suggested, Enos said. What it’s about is “priorities.”

“The whole reason why there was a Natural Vibes (reunion) after all these years is because we put aside all our priorities — not our differences,” Enos said last week, during an interview before the band got together for a rehearsal at Hawaiian Brian’s.

Those priorities include family, work commitments and long-term career goals. Enos and vocalist PeniDean Pau‘auli are the fathers of young children: Enos has a 2-year-old; Pau‘auli has 3-year old twins. Bassist Jehua Evans has what amounts to full-time employment working with several musical groups in Southern California; he was touring on the East Coast for a significant part of last year. Keyboardist Shane Abraham has a full-time job on Oahu, driving for HandiVan.

Enos acknowledged that there were some “head-butting times” within the group but said that while a decision to take the group as far as it could go meant putting everything else second, time passed and priorities changed.

“Basically, for the dream (of Natural Vibrations) and everything, kids was pushed to the side, families, wives, job opportunities. Going out on tour the way we did and living on the mainland the way we did really made everybody think what their priorities really were,” Enos said. “Kayton (Macariola, aka ‘Sly Mongoose’) was one of the first to decide that he needed to stay in Hawaii.”

Pua‘auli left the group, then based in San Diego, in 2014, returning to Hawaii and setting out as a solo musician, performing as PeniDean. Percussionist Macariola joined him in playing music back in the islands.

Evans found a home on the mainland as a full-time working musician with other groups and decided to stay there.

Eventually it fell on Enos and Abraham, also back in Hawaii, to keep the Vibes’ name alive by enlisting other musicians to work with them. For a while Jamin “Chief Ragga” Wong, former lead vocalist of Ho‘aikane and a formidable solo artist, adding his distinctive voice to the mix.

The opportunity to consider a reunion came with a call from Pau‘auli to Enos.

“Peni wanted to do something,” Enos said. “We decided to finish what we started, and that’s where we’re at now.”

And so, Saturday night they’ll be back together and headlining a Hawaii’s Finest Clothing mega-show that also includes popular local acts Ten Feet, Ekolu, Three Plus and Ho‘onu‘a.

It will be the first time in almost five years that Pua‘auli, Enos, Abraham, Macariola and Evans will be performing together. (The sixth member of the group, drummer Stacy Medeiros, couldn’t make the gig, so PeniDean drummer Harry Kawaihalau is sitting in.)

As a bonus for fans with long memories, founding member Koa Ibarra will join them for the final two songs.

The entire set will be recorded for release as a “live” album” and what will probably be the final Natural Vibrations CD. However, Enos says that there is enough unreleased archival material available that they could release at least one more album after that if fans are interested.

Fan interest seems a given. Natural Vibrations — “Natty Vibes” for short — hit big on local radio with the release of their first album, “Balls Rolling,” in 1996. Their second, “All Natural,” was the winner in a newly created best reggae album category at the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in 1999.

The group also won a reggae album Hoku in 2004 with “The Circle” and in 2008 with “From the Heart.”

They plan to play as many songs as possible from their seven albums Saturday — the others are “Getting High,” “Got This Music” and an anthology, “Ultimate Vibes,” which was released in 2009.

While this lineup is the one with which most fans are familiar, Enos takes pains to clarify that it isn’t the “original” Natty Vibes.

“To us the ‘original’ is a whole different thing, too,” Enos explained. “We had an original drummer, Koa Ibarra, and he and I founded the band, we put it together. But he was a lifeguard, so really early on in our careers he decided, ‘I gotta go with my career.’ We had other singers as well, and writers and percussion players, so what everyone knows now as the original Natural Vibes was from maybe 1993 to 2014.”

Several of the earlier members of the group were still around for the first recordings, Enos noted, mentioning that Macariola’s brother played bass on the band’s first three albums.

Word to the wise, don’t sleep on this one: In the interview, Enos was pretty clear that this could never happen again. Evans will be returning to the mainland to pick up his commitments there, and another full reunion is a long shot at best.

“Everybody’s right where they want to be,” Enos said. “Peni’s family is behind what he’s doing with his solo album, and that’s good, but for some of us there are other priorities. When we were living on the mainland and touring on the mainland, our wives and our families (in Hawaii) were asking, ‘What about us?’ We took a lot of hard roads for what we did.”