Sneaking in with the bands: a Hawaii travelogue
In April of 1968, the song “Sky Pilot” by Eric Burdon and The Animals was near the top of the rock-and-roll record charts. Radio KKUA 69 Honolulu announced that a concert headlined by the Animals at the Honolulu International Center would be held on Saturday the 13th, a few days before my 15th birthday.
With my birthday money I bought tickets for the concert for my friend Paul and myself. We were army brats at Fort Shafter. He was already 15 with a driver’s license and had use of his parents 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix, white with red guts.
As we walked into the concert, a friend of Paul’s approached us with Press Passes he had acquired somewhere. Being the bold little juvies we were, we just cruised into the dressing room with the real press and tried to be invisible. There we were amongst Eric Burdon and the Animals; Strawberry Alarm Clock; Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels; and a local band called Love Special Delivery that featured a beautiful, brunette exotic dancer with great eyes. The press and Eric Burdon were bantering friendly like. I commented to the Alarm Clock’s drummer that I admired the gold strawberry alarm clock medallion he was wearing, and he gave me a Marlboro from his pack and took one for himself. One of the press guys was hitting on the exotic dancer, who was thoroughly enjoying the attention.
The exotic dancer act was the event opener and she moved like a panther. Mitch Ryder’s music was more soul than rock, but he had great energy anywhere. Alarm Clock had a big hit, “Incense and Peppermints,” that was way up on the Top 40 chart at the time. It was a difficult number instrumentally, but they played it well live. Eric Burdon, of course, stole the show. He did “Sky Pilot” with pyrotechnics for the finale. But when he sang his 1964 hit, “House of The Rising Sun,” the audience seemed to emit a collective reverence. That song’s instrumental was used with chilling effect as background music in the protracted death scene in Martin Scorsese’s film “Casino.” It was my first rock concert and it was a really great time. Everyone in the audience was dressed very well and, somehow surprising to me, were mostly well behaved.
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