SATURDAY
Country music will fill the air at Republik
Head to The Republik on Saturday to hear Hawaii’s budding country music stars take their shot at fame at Country Showdown 2016.
About a dozen singers, selected over the past few months at preliminary contests held around the state, will compete for prizes and the chance to compete in the national Country Showdown 2016, which carries a $100,000 prize and gives competitors national exposure, said Tia Spence of radio station Country 97.5, one of the sponsors of the local event. Spence said the national contest “is a huge, huge deal. LeAnn Rimes and Chris Young have won it. That’s how they got their start in country music.”
Country music fans can expect “all kinds of country music, anything from old country to new country, so long as it’s country music,” Spence said.
Winning the local contest can definitely pay off. Last year’s winner. Kiana Lum, pictured, sang with Keith Urban during his visit here in September. Lum will open Saturday’s show, while local country music artist Dita Holifield and her Hillbilly House Band will perform after the contest.
Where: The Republik, 1349 Kapiolani Blvd.
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $5-$10 at the door. No advance sales.
Info: 975country.com
Classic rock’s soft sound taking over Waikiki Shell
Singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, recognized not only for his own performances, but also for writing for some of the best artists of his generation, heads up an evening of classic rock at the Waikiki Shell on Saturday.
Bishop hit it big with “Save It for a Rainy Day” and “On and On” from his his 1976 debut album, “Careless,” which reached No. 34 on the Billboard charts and went gold. He’d paid his dues getting there, having started playing at frat houses in San Diego as a teenager in the ’60s and then composing little-noticed works for an L.A. publishing house for years. By the time he recorded “Careless,” however, his credibility was good enough to get Art Garfunkel, Eric Clapton — who would later call Bishop one of his favorite guitarists — and Chaka Khan to contribute.
Bishop wound up composing and performing tunes for movies including “Tootsie,” “Animal House” and “White Nights.” His songs have been performed by Phil Collins, Clapton, Barbra Streisand, Kenny Loggins, Johnny Mathis, Phoebe Snow, David Crosby — even Luciano Pavarotti.
Nominated for two Grammys and an Oscar, Bishop is set to release a new album, “Blueprint,” on July 29, which features remakes of some of his top hits and a new tune written with Clapton.
Also on the bill are Ambrosia, which had the Top 5 hits “How Much I Feel” (1978) and “Biggest Part of Me” (1980), and Firefall, whose hits include “You Are the Woman” (1976) and “Just Remember I Love You” (1977).
Where: Waikiki Shell
When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $40-$75
Info: ticketmaster.com or 866-448-7849
Join Iggy Jang, violinist Chee-Yun and other musicians in Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” 7:30 p.m. today, Honolulu Museum of Art. $15-$25. honolulumuseum.org or 532-6097
A traditional luau on Saturday will benefit Kalaeloa Heritage Park
Take in a luau on Saturday and support Kalaeloa Heritage Park, a unique cultural site on Oahu that is undergoing restoration.
The park is on land that was originally part of Naval Air Station Barbers Point, which was closed in the 1990s and returned to the state. Community groups have started to develop a park on the grounds, building a traditional homestead, or kauhale, pictured, and cataloging its numerous historical sites.
“It’s approximately 77 acres, and there’s 177 different cultural sites that have been identified,” said Kawika Burgess, of the Kalaeloa Heritage and Legacy Foundation, which is overseeing the restoration of the site and is holding the luau. “Features and sites there are unique. A lot of them are made out of coral rock rather than the traditional lava rock, and a lot of the sites have the upright stones, which show more of a Tahitian influence.”
The fundraiser, the group’s second, begins at 10 a.m., followed by an 11 a.m. luau featuring traditional Hawaiian food and entertainment from Peter Moon, Donald Kaulia, Rodney Bejer and kumu hula Tatiana Tseu Fox and her halau.
Cultural practitioners also will be giving demonstrations in woodcarving, making kapa and other activities, and tours of the park will be given starting at 1:30 p.m.
Where: Coral Sea Road and Long Island Street, Kapolei
When: 10 a.m. Saturday
Cost: $25-$50
Info: khlfoundation.org
SUNDAY
Storyteller will focus on ghostly surf tales
As the Honolulu Museum of Art continues to screen films for its summer Surf Film Festival, Lopaka Kapanui, pictured, is getting with the program with some stories of his own.
The storyteller has been holding monthly ghost and storytelling sessions at the museum this year. Sunday’s will be devoted to surfing-themed tales.
“I’ll be telling some of the ghost stories I heard when I was living in Waianae,” he said. “One of the stories is of a friend of my family; he was actually dating one of my hanai sisters. He went off to Vietnam and was killed, but a month after he was killed, all the people at that surf spot would claim to see him surfing.”
In another a man is protected from his abusive stepfather by his shark aumakua. “All of a sudden the shark comes and bumps his stepfather off his board,” he said.
As one might expect living in Hawaii, there are a lot of good stories about surfing floating around here, and Kapanui has heard a lot of them. “The great thing is that there’s a lot of accountability,” he said. “There’s backup, there’s reference to these stories.”
Where: Honolulu Museum of Art
When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $12-$15
Info: honolulumuseum.org or 532-6097
