Po'okela Street Band includes, from left, Francis Cacalda, Richard Stevens and Rylen Akana.

"It's just starting to hit us and we're really excited about coming home and sharing our mana'o. We got relatives calling us to say they saw our name in lights at the Blaisdell," Rylen Akana said during a conference call.

"We starting playing for fun, and to express our feelings of being from Hawaii. It's still fun - even with an album out - but we never thought we'd be coming back to play at the Shell," guitarist Francis Cacalda added.

Akana, Cacalda and their fellow Hawaiian expatriates range in age from 21 to 47. Akana, originally from Molokai, is 33; Maui-born Cacalda is just turned 24.

They share a love of contemporary music: Hawaiian, reggae, rock and pop. Their first album, "Shakajamma," blends elements of all four while avoiding bogus pseudo-Jamaican accents and the other affectations.

"We believe in using the influences of the Seattle rock scene and reggae while holding tight to our Hawaiian culture," Akana explained.

Akana and Cacalda are the band's composers. They incorporate reggae rhythms into their music while writing about Hawaiian issues rather than rehashing faux-rasta cliches. A remake of Inner

Circle's "Front And Center" was therefore reworked to become "Front And Center Hawaiian."

"We explained our frustrations (to Inner Circle) and asked permission to change their lyrics to express what we feel as Hawaiians. They gave us their blessings to go for it," Akana recalled.

The band came together within the growing community of former Hawaii residents in the Pacific Northwest (drummer Jeff Burdick is the token mainlander).

Being the first Hawaiian-reggae band on the scene piqued the curiosity of Seattle area club owners. Solid musicianship and the "exotic" sounds of ukulele and slack-key guitar built their following. The band self-produced "Shakajamma."

The band members still work "day jobs" and Cacalda is completing his master's of arts at St. Martin's College.

"Aloha is the same all over but you miss it more when you're away (from Hawaii)," Akana says. "I want my children to be able to fit in here but also have their culture. There's a federally funded organization up here that holds Hawaiian language classes once in a while but there aren't as many resources for children as back home.

"Brother Noland and Tony Conjugacion come up each year to teach music and hula but they're the only ones. We learned Hawaiian music before we learned anything thing else, and I hope we can continue that here too."

What: 6th Annual Jam at the Shell with Big Mountain, the Ka'au Crater Boys, Ho'Aikane, Po'okela Street Band, Mililani and Ulise
When: 4 p.m. Saturday
Where: Waikiki Shell
Tickets: $18.50 for pool and first terrace, $17.50 for second terrace, $16 grass seating
Information: 591-2211

The band Big Mountain joins the Po'okela Street Band and others for the Jam at the Waikiki Shell Saturday.