THE NIGHT STUFF
Wave Waikiki comfort food for clubbers

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Black light and geometric paper cutouts help give Wave Waikiki its cozy, friendly atmosphere. The club has managed to reinvent itself repeatedly over the past 20 years to attract new generations of dancers without alienating longtime patrons. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Like a Zippy's for the night-crawling set, the Wave changes its specials now and then. (The club's main floor sported rave-ready psychedelic decor the Sunday morning we stumbled in.) Still, it stocks the ribs-sticking psychic comfort food you sometimes simply crave. (The club's interior color scheme was still as Pearl Jam "Black" as my grunge-era UH-Manoa undergrad mood.)

Twenty-plus years after opening, the Wave is that rare breed of nightclub that keeps subtly reinventing itself for new generations without totally alienating fomer Wave slaves like myself who return home every once in a while to raid the fridge.

With little more than 125 patrons, the Wave seemed less crowded at 2 a.m. than I remembered from years past. Still, the added roominess (especially on the downstairs dance floor) was welcome after a long evening of involuntary sweat swapping at a couple of other clubs.

The Wave's downstairs main room was bathed in black lighting that conjured eerie glowing effects from dozens of geometrically shaped, high-school-art-class-reminiscent paper cutouts hanging from the ceiling. Blanketing the dance floor and making ample use of the intriguing lighting was enough shredded white paper to rival Arthur Andersen's corporate trash room. Seemingly fascinated with the makeshift carpeting, a couple dozen dancers moved freely to funky house and breaks grooves while occasionally kicking or tossing up handfuls of the stuff into the air.

"We're going to Hanauma Bay tomorrow ... wanna go?" the more lucid of a pair of twentysomething tourist girls asked a muscular blond guy in an aloha shirt/jeans shorts combo they were dancing with. "A bus driver told me there's lots of fishes there."

"Oooh ... fishes!" cooed her slightly inebriated friend.

Most of the Wave's downstairs patrons were mingling on the sidelines drinking, talking or attempting the now-or-never hookup at 2:45 a.m. when we headed upstairs to the club's smaller and more intimate second room. Moodily illuminated by a couple of strategically placed pinhole light balls casting thin beams over a snugly packed dance floor, the room was all about old- and new-school urban grooves and hip-hop.

As a mellow R&B set tempered by Mtume's "Juicy Fruit" bowed to an equally welcome, long-unheard remix of Q-Tip's "Vibrant Thing," we settled down on a sofa overlooking the thinning downstairs crowd. On the dance floor, a tall and wiry guy in a loose polo and baggy walkshorts found more than enough room to break-dance to a barely audible Sarah McLachlan remix. Shredded paper scattered as he whipped wind across the floor.

We claimed ownership of our upstairs sofa until closing — talking about the night, drinking in the DJ's superlative musical taste and watching a woman in a blonde bob write on the soundproof glass in front of us with still-warm wax from a tabletop votive. When all was said and done, we headed to Zippy's for breakfast.

Ah, comfort food.

Got a night spot or regular club event you'd like us to check out? Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Where: Wave Waikiki, 1877 Kalakaua Ave., 941-0424

When: A recent Sunday morning

Our arrival/departure: 2 a.m./3:30 a.m.

Cover: $5

Under 21 OK?: No

Age of crowd: Twenty-somethings

The dress CODE: None

Attire we saw: On the guys: button-down, solid shirts open with T-shirts, jeans, loose-fitting slacks, casual shorts. On the women: snug T-shirts, stretch tops, scoopneck tops and tank tops with jeans or capris; no dresses

What we drank: Smirnoff ice (it had been a long night), Coke — $7.50 total

How crowded was it?: 100 to 125 people

QUEUE?: No

Sample music: Downstairs: "Possession (Rabbit In The Moon Mix)" (Sarah McLachlan). Upstairs: "Always On Time" (Ja Rule and Ashanti), "Juicy Fruit" (Mtume)

Dancing?: Yes, though more so on the smaller upstairs floor than the large one downstairs

Interior in a nutshell: Classic Wave Waikiki black, with black lighting, a slightly psychedelic theme and an unused trapeze

Overheard line of the night: "Remember to wash your face off, dude." From a friend to a friend, in the downstairs men's restroom after one of them threw up