Center City needs votes to reach Cabo Wabo
By Chad Pata
Special to The Advertiser
In its brief history, Center City has never found the spotlight easy to come by.
Aubrey Glover • Special to The Advertiser
The four members of the punk-rock band often rehearse at midnight or later because of work commitments.
Center City members, from left, Kui Bento, Brandon Reid, Justin Park and Kai Gandall are hoping to garner votes.
What's more, they refuse to play cover songs that most venues all but require, don't have money to produce their own CD and aren't that far removed from having to wash dishes to pay their bills.
But all that could change by midnight Friday with a little help from their fans and a few clicks of the mouse.
That's when online voting ends for Hard Rock Cafe's "A Shot at the Cabo Wabo Meltdown 2003" contest.
The meltdown is a four-month battle of the bands featuring hundreds of competitors at 24 Hard Rock Cafes nationwide. Each site held qualifying and finals contests, with the winners from each location getting their winning song — and band name — posted on the chain's Web site, www.hardrock.com.
Fans can listen to each band's songs and vote on the one they like best. The top five vote-getters win a trip to Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to perform for Sammy Hagar and a group of record executives.
Center City is hoping that recording contracts and fame will follow. But first, former Kalani High classmates Justin Park, Brandon Reid and Kai Gandall, and Hilo's Kui Bento need your votes.
To vote for Center City, go to www.centercity.tk and click on "Vote," or visit www.hardrock.com. While there, you can listen to their single "Lucky Stars." The band will be opening for The Caps at Pipeline Cafe on Thursday and headlining at R&B's on Saturday.
Heading into the final week, the band is in sixth place in the voting.
How to get your vote in
"They were basically nobodies before this. Now they are turning into something huge," said Michael Griffith, general manager of Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu.
The last check of online voting was at the end of July. The Hard Rock hasn't given out numbers, but the company has reserved the right to bring one wild-card band to Cabo that was not voted in the top five.
Regardless of the outcome, Center City has come a long way in a short time.
The genesis came on New Year's Day, 2002, when three Kalani High classmates decided it might be cool to be in a band.
Only one of them — guitarist Gandall — actually played an instrument. But by spring they had won the Kapi'olani Community College talent show and were on their way.
"We did not win the show with talent, but because we were different and we weren't playing Hawaiian music," said Park, the front man and bassist.
The addition of Bento, a talented young guitarist who was being pursued by BMG Music, completed the band's transition from a group that was just different to a band with its own sound.
"He is awesome, and I had heard so much about him," said Reid, the drummer. "Lots of things started working after Kui got here."
Not everything has clicked yet, though. Despite the leap forward in quality, their originality has been an obstacle as much as a stepping stone. "We don't even know a cover song as a band," laughed Gandall (though he admits to playing Green Day covers when alone).
Because of their reluctance to play other bands' songs, Center City knew it had to take a different route to exposure. They opted to take a page from the successful DJs in town: Throw a party, make it fun and the kids will come.
So they started putting on free shows at places like BedRoq, R & B's and Hard Rock, inviting everyone they knew. The gigs began to draw a crowd, the kind a rock band wants. "They have a very good-looking, younger female following," said Griffith.
What Center City is still developing in talent, it makes up for in looks and energy. The shows have gotten so frenetic that Gandall still has a bald spot from a run-in with Bento's guitar. But they do want to bring in fans for the music, eventually.
"My goal is to be a band that people not only want to come see what we'll do, but also what songs we are going to play," said Park, who writes all the lyrics.
Stage presence and good looks can only take them so far. Online voters' only taste is a faceless mp3 of the band's early song "Lucky Stars," a rock anthem that their fans have begun singing along with at shows.
"Seeing people I don't know jamming to it, that is so much motivation for us," said Bento, who at one point played guitar at the airport for money.
Regardless of the final results, the band sees the contest as a great opportunity for a local rock scene that has been largely overlooked.
"Even if we don't get signed, if we open the door for other bands to make it, that would be cool," said Bento.
Correction: Center City won the Kapi'olani Community College spring talent show. The name of the sponsor of the talent show was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
