Review Detail

I was the financial backer for the 1st Hawaii Pop Rock Festival at the Waikiki Shell in 1967. What an amazing, full-spectrum experience it was part of!
Being fresh from the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco I was full of dreams, a good cash flow, and visions of bringing the San Francisco Sound to my quasi-homeland Hawai'i.
It only took $5000 to down-pay for the bands to fly over. I promoted the festival on live FM radio from near downtown Honolulu over Gus Gossart's late-night DJ show (big picture window overlooking the parking lot next to the radio station, broadcasting what Gus was playing over outdoor loudspeakers to a lot full of dancing, having clean fun, young folks. I also had the first 45 copy of jimmy Hendrix's "Purple Haze" hit played in the islands...another hit that was!
The 3 bands played with all their heart! The crowd...well...there was lots of kids inside large, clear, plastic dry cleaner bags puffing away on cans of "Cann'a Frost" (used for freezing mixed drink glassware), which was upsetting watching! Then the festival promoter, instead of paying the bands off, and reimbursing me as well, after the show, slipped out to the airport with all the cash from on-stie ticket sales where he boarded a flight that (eventually?) took him to Europe ...full spectrum experience! But, hey!, we were all in Hawai'i.
Still a few weeks later I managed to scrape-up enough $$ to turn a recently vacated car dealership on Ala Moana Blvd into a under-21, live bands night club (no alcohol, but we had a row of 5 or 6 multi-dispensary soda pop machines...lots of live rock&roll, blues and even some electric jazz..for about 3 months until Honolulu PD raided us around 3AM, found my (then) wife passed-out in one of the back rooms converted into a bedroom, with an oz of primo exposed in her open purse...one thing led to another, we were shut-down, she was "86'ed" from Oahu...and the beat goes on... ... ... ...but what came next is another story...then another...then another!