Happy hour is an hour old at the Row Bar.

It's the first Friday after the holidays. It's just after sunset. The sky, for the moment, is clear. I've got my requisite post-work libation. And the longtime Restaurant Row outdoor bar isn't as bustling as I remember it.

Sigh.

I get an earful of explanations I'm inclined to believe.

Kapolei commuter Alan Manzano, watching ESPN Sportscenter from the table next to mine while I wait for my partner in Night Stuff, reminds me that the monthly First Friday art walk is happening downtown. There's also a concert by the nominees for the Grammy's best Hawaiian music album on the State Art Museum lawn.

"That's probably sucking the crowd out of Ocean's, too," surmises Manzano.

I tip my chair and peer into the Ocean Club. It is kind of slow for a Friday. I ask Manzano why he wasn't doing First Friday.

"You seen one First Friday, you seen 'em all," Manzano says. "I wanted a cheap beer before dinner (at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse). My wife is late. If I'm lucky, I'll get to have another."

Cheap beer, that is.

My last sit-down at Row Bar was some time back in college in the late '90s. The bar wasn't new — heck, it's been around pretty much since Restaurant Row opened in the '80s — but I still remember standing around waiting for a table to clear on a Friday evening while Sarah McLachlan sang about strutting rasta wear and suicide poems.

Singles met other singles. Loud klatches of commiserating office folk downed tequila shots and beer chasers. Tables seemed packed together so tightly, you felt rude not chatting with strangers next to you.

I check my watch again. My Night Stuff partner is now really late, and I feel a light drizzle.

At 6:30 p.m., half of Row Bar's tables are occupied, mostly by a casually dressed crowd of twenty- to fiftysomethings, laughing and chatting loudly. A few scattered souls sit at the large circular bar. Neon beer signs provide the mood lighting as an acoustic duo digs into happy-hour friendly tunes ("Honolulu City Lights," "Lifetime Party," etc.)

Only Manzano and I are alone.

A stand-alone outdoor bar, Row Bar doesn't have its own kitchen. But a server from neighboring Italian restaurant Dolce makes the rounds with a menu. Bowls of fresh popcorn are gratis. If one isn't offered, no one cares if you grab a bowl and self-serve.

My server tells me Friday nights are still Row Bar's busiest, picking up during a later happy hour from 10 to 11:30 p.m. when the Ocean Club's late-night crowd arrives. Fair enough.

Thal Kim and Aimee Okamoto had plans beyond Row Bar.

"This is just the drink, before the dinner, before the movie, before Pussycat (Lounge)," said Okamoto. "We'd be at Bar 35 if it wasn't First Friday. That place gets impossible on First Friday."

Score two for Row Bar.

BLAME CANADA!

Or don't. Unapologetically neo-psychedelic and so-indie-pop-it-hurts sextet Of Montreal is actually from the fertile southern music burg of Athens, Ga. Never heard of 'em? Neither did yours truly before this week.

But turn off your pretentious-album-title radar temporarily and perhaps you, too, will sort of dig Of Montreal's 2001 "Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse" CD. Childlike, yet so intelligently adult!

Plus, I could never harsh on any band bold enough to say, "This track is just screaming out for some theremin!" Tonight at Anna Bannana's, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., 21 and older; Saturday at thirtyninehotel, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., all ages.

ROCK, ROCK PLANET ROCK

Stay tuned for more details on '80s hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa bringing the electro-funk to NextDoor on Jan. 28. This weekend, though, it's DJ Miguel Migs tonight and Blackalicious on Saturday, from 9 p.m.-2 a.m.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.