Club Scene
Maze strives for something completely different

By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer

Melanie Camberlango, visiting from San Francisco, and her friend Sophia Sek, top right, of Kaimuki, hang out in the Paradox Lounge at the Maze. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser Maze 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m.-midnight Sundays Waikiki Trade Center, 2255 Kuhio Ave. $5 921-5800 Also: Dress code is "absolutely fabulous."

Oceans becomes Pipeline becomes World Cafe becomes Spy Bar.

Make a recording of the music at these clubs.

Aside from the occasional live band, the sound is the same. Bass, whirring noises, more bass, whistles, synthesizers, bass, bass, bass.

Clubbers need options.

In that, Maze delivers.

The newest club to wake up the night has already created a buzz with its eclectic decor, beat variety and a refreshingly different atmosphere.

The best part: With a dress code of "absolutely fabulous," the Maze was packed with patrons who avoided the basic black and got with their inner diva.

Patent leather pants with flames up the sides, feather boas, hot pink satin skirts — and those were just the drag queens outside.

One modelesque brunette parted the crowd at the club's grand opening July 28 in a triangle bikini top one shade darker than her tanned skin. A white crochet top barely covered her midsection, a perfect stomach for her navel ring. She strolled past a quintessential fashion show of long dresses, shawls, plunging leopard-prints sequins and bindis, winding her way through the crowd before disappearing.

"It's definitely different," laughed 40-year-old Violet King, dressed as though she had just come from work, complete with comfortable shoes. "But in a good way."

The Maze wants to be many things: A New York club with a European feel in the middle of Waikiki, a place where art and music and fashion meet for drinks, a haven for the clubbed-to-death bored.

Ultimately, it's new, it's fresh and it's open for business.

"I love it," raved Asia Selke, a cocktail waitress sporting the Maze uniform — a provocative black outfit topped with a glittering gold wig. "The music, the atmosphere, the crowd. The people are real, no bull----. They come here to be themselves."

To be themselves in an environment so surreal.

The Maze is composed of three rooms, each with its own personality. Enter the Maze Arena, with blue and green laser lights darting across the ceiling juxtaposed by flower arrangements of torch ginger, birds of paradise and orchids. The candle-lit tables are adorned with pictures and artwork of women in all stages of undress. Waitresses wade through the sea of bodies, their shiny red wigs bobbing like buoys. Couples are squeezed together in booths along the perimeter of the dance floor, the backdrop to the progressive house and trance spinning off the turntables.

Follow the greasy-haired boys in retro bowling shirts into the Red Room, where the distinct smell of paint still lingers. Deep house matches the deep red ambiance, as the slow-moving disco ball lulls the dancers to a quiet groove. An ice sculpture filled with bottles of vodka starts melting under the dim lights and body heat. Two blondes in aqua sequins slink through the room like mermaids who own the lagoon.

"This room right here," said Vicky Rivera, a 43-year-old sales associate from Pearl City, who picked the crimson lounge as her final stop. "There's no beat to it and it's not as crowded."

Take a cue from the plaid-skirted female in thigh-high boots and head toward the Paradox Lounge, a VIP room with a warehouse texture. Feel the acid jazz, the smooth down-tempo, the earthy greens and grays. Men with sideburns and goatees, who felt pretty good about leaving the apartment looking like that, walk confidently to the bar, prettied up with sculptures of clowns and court jesters moving to an eerie dance to music no one can hear.

A timid group of 20-somethings, neatly clad in matching blacks, clung to each other as they moved through the rooms, beer bottles in hand. Intimidated in the beginning, they started to figure it out.

At first everyone is beautiful, confident, stunning. But in the end, once your eyes get adjusted to the seductive light, your opinion changes.

Maze, like so many other clubs before it, provides the background for the mirage that is the allure of night.