From Ho to Eternity

HYPED AS: Don Ho, live in concert at the Leisure World Amphitheater.

REALITY: “Alooooooohaaaaa!” screams emcee Fred Cooper. “Aloooooohaaaaa!” replies the audience. This would have been summer’s hot ticket, had there been any tickets to come by. But the summer concert series at the Seal Beach Leisure World is open only to residents and their guests. It’s the first time Hawaii’s most famous crooner (and the only one most mainlanders can name) has brought his Waikiki Beachcomber show to this retiree Levittown, and security’s tight. “We’ve had Rosemary Clooney, Florence Henderson, Les Brown,” says Cooper, program director and a 28-year Leisure World employee. “But this one’s a biggie.” The 2,500-plus-capacity theater is a sea of gray hair, pastel polyester and plastic leis. Some show-goers throw impromptu luaus. “We had mai tais, sweet and sour chicken, pineapple upside-down cake and more mai tais,” says Mary Lou Heard of Westminster, whose parents invited her and her siblings. Together, the family blows tiny soap bubbles.

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THE HO STORY: “I thought all my fans were dead. I finally found you,” says Ho, taking the stage, his voice a low Mauna Loa rumble. It’s a mature audience, and he’s got the patter to match. The lei jokes are played out by the time he’s even introduced, but zingers such as “I want to bring the White House to Hawaii and call it the Ho house” and “Viagra lasts four hours. What am I going to do for the other three hours and 55 minutes?” keep the audience cackling. Musically, his one-hour, 15-minute set delivers all the hits--that is, two renditions of “Tiny Bubbles” to bookend the show--and a duet with 18-year-old daughter Hoku. For those planning their next Hawaiian holiday, there’s also a mini language lesson (“Can everybody say, ‘Kamehameha’?”), and plugs for his daughter Dondi Ho’s clothing line and a nephew’s chocolate factory (“Tell them Uncle Don sent you”). Afterward, the spry 69-year-old singer musters the energy to man the daunting autograph line, dispensing kisses to men and women alike (“that’s our custom”) and signing old honeymoon photos, LPs, 8-tracks and newly purchased CDs and cassettes. Shirlee Vasentine flew here from Texas to join her friends and celebrate the 35th anniversary of the first time they saw Ho in Hawaii. And how do the shows compare? “Are you kidding?” she asks. “He was a lot younger, and so were we.”