THE NIGHT STUFF
Maze still three clubs in one

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

A flying dragon presides over the Red Room dance floor at the Maze Nightclub in the Waikiki Trade Center. The club has three separate dance rooms serving up different kinds of music. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

I'd be lying if I said the Maze's three-clubs-in-one layout offers something for everyone's tastes. (If you like Kenny Chesney, Gloria Gaynor or Morris Day and The Time, seek your jollies elsewhere). But if you're looking for new school Euro-dance, urban R&B and hip-hop or progressive house, the Maze is akin to aural nirvana.

A pair of darkened funhouse-style hallways lead to the nightclub's Paradox Lounge. I had an enjoyable holiday-season memory of knocking back whiskey sours to downtempo ambient electronica in the Paradox still fresh in mind, so it was a bit jarring to be welcomed back with a dance-pop remake of Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" and a remix of a mind-numbing Kylie Minogue hit.

Still, the undeniably danceable change in music styles enlivened the room. I found more patrons on the dance floor and fewer sitting, though there was plenty of room to sit.

The Paradox is moodily illuminated by tabletop votives, soft-glow wall lighting and the occasional dance floor spot or laser. Overall, it's still a good place to kick back.

I wasn't surprised to find few changes made to the Maze's overwhelmingly popular Red Room, the one in the middle. We lost count of this hip-hop enclave's sweaty, tightly packed body count at somewhere between 75 and 100. As it was, we barely avoided the stampede on to the dancefloor that followed the opening beats of Busta Rhymes and Naughty By Nature jams.

The room is still done up in red (duh!), its sole lighting effect a slowly rotating mirror ball lit by red spotlights. Large red Chinese lanterns and ornate parasols accentuate the surroundings.

As far as I can tell, the Maze Arena has the largest dance floor and loudest sound system of the club's three rooms. At 2:30 a.m., a small crowd of about 25 house and trance fanatics (all of them grooving solo, of course) found plenty of room to move, twirl fluorescent glowsticks and even breakdance in the surreal ambiance of multicolored lasers, black lighting and smoke effects.

After finding our posteriors sinking deeper by the minute into a rather lived-in sofa overlooking the Arena, we headed back to the still-crowded Red Room to finish off the night with some old-school Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.

Despite the Maze's surprisingly sizable early a.m. crowd, service was attentive and fast in all three rooms.

Spilled drinks and broken beer bottles (both common occurrences, especially in the crowded and seating-challenged Red Room) were immediately cleaned up by servers AND security staff before the otherwise oblivious could slip and hurt themselves.

At 3 a.m., we even found a short queue of hopefuls still waiting to get in.

What: Maze Nightclub

Where: Waikiki Trade Center, 2255 Kuhio Ave., second floor, 921-5800

Open: 9:30 p.m.-4 a.m. nightly

Cover: $5 for age 21 and over, $10 for ages 18 to 20

Under 21 OK?: Yes, Sunday through Thursday only

Age of crowd: 20s through mid-30s

The dress code: "Absolutely fabulous" (translation: no sandals or caps; and for males only, no tank tops)

Attire we saw: Casual to fairly dressy for both sexes

Our arrival/departure: 1:30 a.m./3 a.m. on a Saturday

What we drank: Skyy Blue ($3)

How crowded was it?: 300 to 400 people

Queue?: Yes, though we got in within five minutes

Sample music: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head," (Kylie Minogue), Paradox Lounge; "Oochie Wally" (QB Finest feat. Nas and Bravehearts), Red Room; rave-friendly progressive house, Maze Arena

Dancing?: Yes, three rooms of it

Overheard line of the night: "I dunno, I think she's somewhere in there." — A female patron cluelessly pointing into the mass of moving bodies in Maze's popular urban-hip-hop-blasting Red Room, responding to her friend's inquiry about someone named Monica.