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Poifest headliners Verve Pipe.
Feast on Poifest!
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinIt's being billed as the largest outdoor concert festival of the year, and Claudette Bond, promotion director of 97.5 KPOI says that the first Poifest is going to be "all that" and more. Six bands -- all familiar to KPOI listeners -- will perform at the Turtle Bay Hilton. Free parking. Free mist area. A tacky tropical luau theme. "One of the prerequisites (for KPOI) was that Poifest be cheaper than any other showcase show or festival. Another thing that we wanted to do was get bands that are just getting on top of their wave -- right before they're really explosive," she said.
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Smashmouth feasts at Poifest.
The Verve Pipe is the designated headliner; Bond mentions Smash Mouth and Matchbox 20 as two other near-explosive bands on the bill. Local favorite Buck O Nine is also flying in. So are Cowboy Mouth and Naked. Local band Sunburn will open the show at noon.Smash Mouth's debut album, "Fush Yu Mang," recently perched at No. 58 on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart; the video of the band's retro-sounding debut single, "Walking on the Sun," an MTV hit. Smash Mouth addresses topics as diverse as homelessness, posers and dysfunctional relationships, with an amorphous, appealing mix of punk, rock and ska.
Buck O Nine are the old-timers. They established themselves on the musical map in 1995 with a memorable album ("Barfly") and a separate five-song compilation titled "Water in my Head." Songs like "Callin' in Sick" and "Full Metal Bree" are representative of the lyric approach they apply to a punk-ska-reggae-rock fusion.
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Buck O Nine.
The Verve Pipe arrives riding the success of its first major label album, "Villains," and the band's hit song, "The Freshmen," a power pop portrait of two men discussing the suicide of a woman they had both dated.Bond and KPOI Music Director Nikki Basque organized Poifest in conjunction with Radio Events Group, a company that produces tailor-made events for radio stations nationwide.
"They'd never done anything with Hawaii before and we decided we were tired of our market being overlooked," Bond said, adding that other promoters were bringing acts that didn't always fit KPOI's format.
"Radio Events Group helps you book acts that you play. What a concept! We gave them our wish list."
Basque and Bond also specified that a portion of the proceeds go to charity. Funds raised will benefit the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline, a local-based not-for-profit organization founded in 1991 to assist Hawaii victims of domestic violence. The second beneficiary is the Surfrider Foundation, one of several groups supporting the Save Sunset Beach Coalition's campaign to prevent excessive urbanization of the North Shore.
None of the proceeds go to KPOI, although Blockbuster Hawaii, Budweiser and Hawaii's Natural High are helping to underwrite some of event's cost.
"We're grateful for their support, but we'll probably lose money because nobody (here) really knew what it was about."
She said that by next year's fest, they will know.
On stage
What: Outdoor concert starring Verve Pipe, Match Box 20, Smash Mouth, Cowboy Mouth, Naked, Buck O Nine and Sunburn
