The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has a Review of last night’s show in Honolulu: “Jimmy Buffett at the Waikiki Shell”
Let’s face it: One Jimmy Buffett concert is just like every other.
This is praise of the highest order: He makes changes, as he did at a sold-out show at the Waikiki Shell on Saturday night, Dec. 14. But he never disappoints.
And if a crowdful of many/mostly gray-haired fans are willing to don Styrofoam fins on their heads, and parade around the streets in coconut bras and grass skirts and many other bizarre forms of pseudo-tropical gear and show up by the hundreds you know he’s doing something right.
As he’s done for quite some years here through a friendly relationship with Honolulu promoter Tom Moffatt, Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band begin touring in April and end here in the late fall, just before Buffett’s Dec. 25 birthday.
“Why wouldn’t you end in Hawaii? Duh?,” he asked rhetorically to roars of approval on a clear night with a moon just a sliver off full.
But he is a superb entertainer. The way he talks to his audience is the key to the success of his shows. He jokes. He teases. He tells stories on himself, such as the ones he told Saturday night about watching guys getting creamed by monster waves on the North Shore, where he’s been staying for nearly two weeks, and then seeing children dancing in the froth between sets collecting lost slippers. He loves to surf but knows his limits; which might be at the slipper-searching level.