Hawaiʻi has a new entertainment venue: Limelight Hawaiʻi. The 6,000-square-foot space, which is adjacent to Ala Moana Hotel and was once known as Hawaiian Hut, will open to the public for its first late night event with a concert that features High Watah and Three Plus on Saturday, June 13.
As High Watah took the stage as part of a private grand opening event on Thursday, June 11, sweeping scenes of Molokai, including mountains and ocean, splashed across the screen behind them at Limelight Hawaiʻi.
“We did our sound check on Tuesday, and the lights are awesome,” Keldin Calairo-Nakagawa told Aloha State Daily ahead of the concert on Thursday. “The big LED screen is awesome. We’re just super excited for Saturday.”
The transportation company Roberts Hawaiʻi has made an approximately $15 million investment in the venue, which is designed for night club entertainment, fashion shows, corporate events and weddings, as previously reported by ASD.
“I went to rehearsal this past Tuesday and High Watah — they did a couple numbers, sound checking and putting their videos in and everything, and they really have the vision of using the technology,” Roy E. Pfund, president and CEO of Roberts Hawaiʻi, told Aloha State Daily on Thursday. “They incorporate video. They use the lighting to time to the music, and they fully utilize the sound system. I was sitting here in this middle row, and you could feel the vibration.”
The concert on Saturday is the first late-night event in the space which is open to the public and runs from 9 p.m .to 2 a.m. Get tickets.
“Again, it's the total experience of immersion with video,” Pfund said.
High Watah is currently a finalist for several Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards, including group of the year, reggae album of the year, and music video of the year.
In December of 2025, High Watah announced on social media that vocalist Lewa Davis-Medija would be going solo, after the band started more than seven years earlier on Molokai.
The band recently dropped the song “You” on April 17, which was written by Calairo-Nakagawa and Etuate Finau.
“It's just about heartbreak and loving somebody, even in the bad times,” he said.
The band is set to release a new album on Aug. 22, Calairo-Nakagawa told ASD. That same date, High Watah will perform at the Blaisdell Arena as part of the Best of Hawaiʻi Music Festival.
On Spotify, some of the band’s top hits include “Sand in My Boots” with 7.8 million streams, “Black Pearl” with 5.7 million streams and “Dangerously Fine” with 3.5 million streams.
High Watah’s version of “Sand in My Boots” swaps out the original song’s mention of a Chevrolet Silverado for a “lifted taco,” a nod to the Toyota Tacoma, and replaces mentions of Eastern Tennessee with Molokai. Paulele Alcon, the band’s manager and booking agent — and the founder of the popular brand Hawaiʻi Finest Clothing — had the idea for the cover.
“And he actually was the one who changed the words too,” Calairo-Nakagawa said.
When asked to pick one of his favorite songs he was written, the singer and songwriter picked “Good Thing.”
“That was about my other half and all the trials and tribulations we went through,” he told ASD. “That’s just a love story about her.”
General admission is $30, plus fees. VIP tickets are sold out. Details.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
