Night Lights Weekend Wrapup April 1-3
First, I have to apologize for the hiatus. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but for the entire month of March, for one reason or another, I neglected the Weekend Wrapup (and also got kind of lazy on Twittering things). Chalk it up to social media burnout or whatever you want, but the point is, I’m back.
Random side query… is it just me, or do any of you also feel the urge to hit “like” on a Twitter post that’s particularly clever or that you agree wholeheartedly with?
Ok, just wondering. On to the weekend…
First Friday also happened to be April Fool’s Day. There’s something great about a day on which you’re not sure whether anything you see, hear or read is true. Although it didn’t seem like I was directly affected by the pranks being pulled (or maybe I just didn’t notice because I had fallen for them), I did hear of some pretty ridiculous ones, both in person and in media. Nonstop’s Ed Morita was afflicted with neon-green boogers, while Ka Leo at UH Manoa reported in a hilariously fake-fact-filled article that YouTube teen sensation Rebecca Black would be coming to the University of Hawaii on a scholarship.
First Friday itself was pretty well-attended, though not as crowded as the last couple months. Take a look at the colorful sights I found, including the Hawaii Suzuki Strings, who were attracting a huge crowd in front of Hawaii Theatre, lion dancers and Miss Chinatowns, clowns and bellydancers at SoHo, sidewalk capoeira, and Taimane Gardner jamming with Quadraphonix at Ong King’s fifth anniversary:
Saturday, as usual, I was suffering from post-First Friday burnout, but heard that two of my favorite indie rock bands, GRLFRNDS and Painted Highways, were performing at Mercury and took the opportunity to get some good shots of them. GRLFRNDS, by the way, are still in the process of trying to get their first album put out. As keyboardist Jake Aesthete said, “It’s kind of like trying to mortgage a house.” They do have a banging new track or two though, so we can look forward to dancing at their awesome live shows until the album does come together.
Oh you silly hipster kids… here are the pics:
Next week, I’ll be traveling, but there’s so much good stuff going on in Honolulu I almost don’t want to be off-island. Starting off with HawaiiSlam’s Grand Slam Finals (probably their biggest night of the year) on Thursday at Fresh Cafe, the weekend continues with Varietease at The ARTS at Mark’s Garage and Fred Everything at NextDoor on Friday, the Hawaii Ocean Expo at Blaisdell and Camera Obscura’s Venetian Mask Ball at The Art Zone on Saturday, and the huge Kokua for Japan concert at Hilton Hawaiian Village on Sunday.
