Vin Dancel and Kakoy Legaspi of Peryodiko

I believe that the true soul of any musician is revealed when his/her performance is simplified. It is when the musicality is easily digested by the audience. In this kind of performance, the audience is captivated by the simplicity and truthfulness of the performer. All that you could do, when you’re actually there watching the artists perform, is to absorb every single musical note and word down to its core.

Last Saturday, I was at the Folk U Alexis and Nika 2 in Piazza Musica at the Podium, the music part of the .MOV International Film, Music and Literature Festival. This is one of the rare moments when I feel musical nirvana.

Enrique de Dios

It was my first time to see Enrique de Dios to hear him play the guitar and actually sing. I usually see him with Brigada. I saw a different kind of Inky de Dios without percussion instruments.

Tao Aves

Another artist that mesmerized me was Tao Aves. I’ve already seen her perform before in Obsidian and this time, there is something new about her music. She already has a keyboard accompaniment which gave a different “folk” flavor in her music. By the way, she is the daughter of Grace Nono. Her voice is somewhat like her mom’s but she’s unique in her own way.

Mikey Amistoso a.k.a Hannah and Gabi

I’ve always known Mikey to be the vocalist of Ciudad but this time he performed as Hannah and Gabi. I expected it to be a duo but Mikey is Hannah and Gabi. He also played the ukelele which I think was very cute!

Aldus Santos

Aldus Santos, vocalist of the Purplechickens and music writer extraordinaire, was passionate in his performance as always. This was where I saw the rawness of his music. Here’s a video I took while he’s performing a song by the Purplechickens.

Pauline Diaz of Toi

The very first time I saw Toi was during Archipelago’s Travel Advisory album launch back in 2009. Pauline is a wonder; her voice reminds me of Sarah Mclachlan and Norah Jones – very soothing to the ears.

Fando and Lis

Jesse Grinter and Raimund Marasigan of Gaijin

Ely Buendia

The line up became more and more interesting towards the end of the show. Other performers were Ace Cada of Bagetsafonik, Jesse Grinter and Raimund Marasigan of Gaijin and Fando and Lis. My favorite performance would be Vin Dancel and Kakoy Legaspi, who are both from Peryodiko. Kakoy played the intro of “Agawan Base” using a thumb piano (thanks to Vin for the name of the thingimajig!). I wasn’t able to complete the video because my camera’s battery was low but I was able to capture the intro, click here.

The highlight of the evening was Ely Buendia’s performance. He played one song from each of his previous and current bands: Animal Lover (Pupil), Wigout (The Mongols) and Lightyears (Eraserheads). As an ultimate Eraserheads fan, it means so much to me that he played Lightyears again.

Pupil just launched the official video for “20/20″, one of the catchiest tunes from their album “Limiters of the Infinity Pool” last week. Great to see the band again after their album launch. I decided to shoot in black and white (and in film grain using Lumix FZ35) because I love this setting whenever I shoot live gigs. Grainy black and white photos just give concert photos a more “rocker” and “film noir” feel on it.

Francis “Brew” Reyes performed 20/20 with Pupil. He also played the guitar in the album. It was awesome seeing Francis again plus, my favorite gig photographer, Niña Sandejas was there too. That’s already a signal that Francis will be there.

Pupil’s 20/20 music video is now being played on local television. The video is actually a breakthrough, Pupil stopped traffic at EDSA. How amazing it is to see EDSA without vehicles passing by? The video will make you appreciate EDSA, cleared from bumper to bumper traffic. I appreciate the blurry effects all throughout video, seemed appropriate with its lyrics “I wish that I can see the world in your eyes“. You can view the video teaser here, I can’t find an official video online yet.

The bands that opened for Pupil are Outerhope and Mayo Baluyot. Outerhope performed with some members from “Ang Bandang Shirley”. I initially thought that “Shirley” will be performing but instead it was Outerhope! It was my first time to see Outerhope, their kind of music is what you should listen if you want to experience zen.

Scott Weiland on vocals

Stone Temple Pilots is one of my favorite bands during the 90′s and them coming here is really something I looked forward to. My partner bought us  Upper Box A tickets for my birthday (what a nice birthday gift, baby!). Our location wasn’t really bad at all. I was able to see a lot of people who are within my generation with less hipsters (Thank you!) . The attendance wasn’t so bad at all, there were more people at the Gen. Admission, Upper boxes and Patron. The VIP was almost filled up as well but I won’t count them in because most of the people there didn’t buy their tickets.

View from Upper Box A in Araneta Coliseum

2 days before the concert, Sino Sikat? was announced to front Stone Temple Pilots. It seems weird that they’re fronting (due to the difference in the genre of music) however they performed well as usual so it didn’t really matter. I think that they’re one of the front acts for international bands that weren’t booed.Good job Sino Sikat!

Dean Deleo (lead guitars)

It’s almost 10:00 pm, Stone Temple Pilots entered the stage and everybody stood up. The band played “Crackerman” (from the “Core” album) and immediately set up the mood for the audience. Scott was singing with the chorus with a megaphone (“Roaming, roaming, roam… Get away Gotta Get Away”). They retained the heavy rocking mood by performing songs  -  “Wicked Garden”, “Vasoline” and “Heaven and Hot Rods”. I immediately melted away hearing “Vasoline” early, my favorite STP song.

Scott with drummer Eric Kretz

The band also performed songs from their new album and good thing I familiarized myself with the songs from that album. Glad to hear “Hickory Dichotomy” and “Between the Lines” live.

Robert Deleo (bass)

Scott Weiland was not very talkative in between songs but always said ‘thank you’ whenever there is an opportunity. A group for foreigners behind us were joking and said that he doesn’t even know what country he was in. He just said “Asia”. Haha. Anyway, that’s ok. The whole band performed very well, most especially Dean Deleo’s lead guitars (which I think were fantastic). How I wished I was infront of him, the lighting on his side of the stage really stood out.

STP performed 17 songs including the encore songs. How I wish I can hear more songs such as “Sour Girl”, “Creep” , “Lady Picture Show”, “Pretty Penny” and “Art School Girl” but I guess this was all that they can do. Anyway, the whole concert itself was already enough for me to be happy. The set list was a balance between old and new stuff. The whole concert was a big sing along party and a reunion of the 90′s generation kids.

Here’s the set list:

1. Crackerman
2. Wicked Garden
3. Vasoline
4. Heaven and Hot Rods
5. Between the Lines
6. Hickory Dichotomy
7. Still Remains
8. Big Empty
9. Dancing Days – (Led Zeppelin cover)
10. Silvergun Superman
11. Plush
12. Interstate Love Song
13. Huckleberry Crumble
14. Down
15. Sex Type Thing
16. Encore: Dead & Bloated and Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart

This is it. The last NU Rock Awards happened last October 29, 2010 at the NBC Tent, Taguig. NU preferred to give away tickets by invitation only and the event became a private affair with no jumping Orcs , just like how the NU Rock Awards started back in 1994. I’m no VIP however I was able to score tickets courtesy of my colleague, Pax (you’re the best!) on the day of the Rock Awards itself. I wasn’t prepared to go but who could not resist those tickets??!!! Two of my motivations to go to the Rock Awards this year: 1) because this will be the last and I wanna be there and 2) I want to see my band photos on the AVPs for some categories (particularly Urbandub). This is the first time that my photos will be used in a big event like this

Kevin Roy Singing the Philippine National Anthem

After the office Halloween party, I went straight to the Fort with Karla. I was expecting that there will a lot of people but apparently, there are more VIPs compared to the complimentary ticket holders who got their tickets from either the sponsor contests or “connections”. Well, I didn’t go there to rub elbows with the VIPs and the VIP wannabes so I’m contented with where I was. 8:30 pm, the actual show hasn’t started yet although I already saw the shadows of Buddy Zabala and Jet Pangan onstage. The actual awards ceremony began with Kevin Roy singing the Philippine National Anthem. It was one of the most awesome performances at that night, Kevin Roy was wearing a suit!

Ebe Dancel of Sugarfree

Performers that night were: Franco, Sugarfree, Up Dharma Down, Greyhoundz, The Youth, Itchyworms, Kamikazee, Slapshock, Pupil, Archipelago, The Dawn, Rivermaya, Wilabaliw and Urbandub. The Dawn opened the awards proper and performed “Iisang Bangka” and “Salamat” medley. The whole show was  about reminiscing the past NU Rock Awards, some bands even performed their old time hits. Greyhoundz performed Pigface with Ian Tayao of Queso, Urbandub performed “Soul Searching” and “First of Summer”, Kamikazee made a medley of their songs such as “Tsinelas”, “Martir Nyebera” and “Ambisyoso”. Kamikazee was with their typical crazy self that night and dressed up as senior citizens. Jay Contreras of Kamikazee kept on “smoking” the giant cigarette while Franco was performing. Wacky guy! I was interested to see The Youth performed “Multong Bakla”,one of the popular punk tunes during my adolescent years. (Hey, I was a 90′s kid!)

Kamikazee

Since I was infront of the gig stage, I wasn’t able to take much photos of the presenters and winners. One of the interesting presenters that night was Hayden Kho who presented the Best Music Video Award together with Kim of NU 107. Because he was popular with his “video”, there were expected reactions from the audiences *wink*. Other celebrities who presented the awards were Vicki Belo, KC Concepcion, Anne Curtis and Tuesday Vargas. KC and Anne presented the Artist of the Year Award together with Ely Buendia and Atom Henares.

By the way, here were the winners of the NU Rock Awards 2010 (got this list from Francis Brew’s Facebook) :

Artist of the Year

• Franco

Album of the Year

• Franco – Franco

Vocalist of the Year

• Gabby Alipe – Urbandub

Guitarist of the Year

• Peavy “Sideshow” Nicolas, Fran Lorenzo – Sleepwalk Circus

Bassist of the Year

• Lalay Lim – Urbandub

Drummer of the Year

• Otep Concepcion – Ozawa / In Love and War

Song of the Year

• This Gathering – Franco

Best New Artist

• Tanya Markova

In The Raw Award

• The Flying Ipis

Listeners Choice

• Franco

Video of the Year

• Disney – Tanya Markova

Best Album Packaging

• Sleepwalk Circus

URock College Band of the Year

• Reese & Vica of Ateneo

Producer of the Year

• Angee Rozul & Ely Buendia & Robert Javier – In Love and War (Ely Buendia was ready to perform with Pupil when he, Angee Rozul and Robert Javier were announced as the winners of this category. Robert Javier was with Ely on the performers stage and not the Awards stage.)

Best Live Act

• Tanya Markova

Hall of Fame

• Angee Rozul

Most of the bands/individuals  I voted won in the different categories. I expected that Franco, Urbandub, Sleepwalk Circus and Tanya Markova will be bagging more than 1 award. Congratulations to all the winners!

Ely Buendia

Rivermaya’s performance was memorable because all the NU 107 staff and former DJs were onstage and performed “Awit ng Kabataan”. This was the perfect song to describe this particular moment. Francis Brew suddenly appeared onstage with his awesome guitar and played the lead with Mike Elgar. Somewhat reminded me of Slash appearing on Michael Jackson’s performance of “Come Together”. It was that awesome!

Francis Brew Reyes

As the categories came close to the Artist of the Year, I was already getting sentimental because I know that this will be the last NU Rock Awards. When Franco was announced as the winner, all the NU staff went onstage led by Francis Brew Reyes for his final words. I can see him being teary-eyed from the big screen, as well as the other NU staff. He’s not directly saying what will happen next but what we confirmed is that this will be the last Rock Awards. NU 107 enjoyed 23 years in the airwaves while the NU Rock Awards was 17 years. Whew, didn’t realize that it was that long! As mentioned in my previous blog post, change is inevitable. What I am looking forward to is how Pinoy Rock will continue to live. I know it will not end. Whether mainstream or underground, Pinoy Rock will still live. I will truly miss NU 107.5 and the Rock Awards.

I can now proclaim that I am no longer a Rock Awards virgin.

Please check the videos I took here (apologies, it’s not that HD enough ) :
The Dawn
Greyhoundz with Ian Tayao
The Youth
Rivermaya with Francis Brew and NU 107 staff
Wilabaliw

Other photos are in my Flickr.

Finally Doki will be releasing their debut album soon and you will have the chance to hear them all live on Oct 30th. This will be at the Votre Bar, #42-A 2/F Eugenio Lopez, Sr. Ave., Brgy. South Triangle, (corner of ABS-CBN). The album won’t be available yet on Oct 30th but definitely it will be released soon. Hope to see you at the listening party!

I grew up with the 90′s music scene and one of my favorite bands during this era was Gin Blossoms. I bet you’ve already heard the news that they’ll be coming to Manila and Cebu but all I can say is… wahhh!!!!! I wanna watch! They’ll be performing at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu on November 19 and will be at the Araneta Coliseum in Manila on November 20. How I wish I can watch. I wonder how much the tickets will be? No details on the price of the tickets but definitely will update this blog post when I get to know how much it’ll be.

It’s back to the 90′s!

Whenever I hear Gin Blossoms, the movie Empire Records definitely comes to mind. Who would not forget the song “Til I Hear It From You”? I even learned to play this with my guitar and jammed with my friends. I definitely want to hear this live. Here are the other songs that I wanna see and hear live:

• As Long As It Matters
• Hey Jealousy
• Found Out About You
• Follow You Down
• Allison Road

I heard they’ve got a new album coming up entitled “No Chocolate Cake” which will be released on September 2010. I bet they’ll be performing some of the new songs when they come here. You can listen to the clips of their new songs here.

It feels good that more and more 90′s bands are coming here in Manila. Hope there’s more!

Greyhoundz and Slapshock are known to perform hard metal music but this time, they toned down their amps for the Splintr Unplugged gig held last night at the Teatrino, Promenade Mall Greenhills. This is actually the 2nd part of Splintr Unplugged, last week it was Sino Sikat? and Typecast. I heard they were awesome as well but I was after the hard metal bands to perform unplugged.

Reg Rubio and Audie Avenido of Greyhoundz

Greyhoundz with Ian Tayao of Queso and Enrique de Dios of Brigada

The show started at around 9:30 pm. Teatrino is an ideal venue for this intimate, unplugged performance because of its small audience capacity. When the red curtains rose, Greyhoundz was onstage. Reg and Audie were seated together in a sofa while Nino and TJ were seated with their respective instruments. There was awkwardness at first with Reg, I guess because he’s seated and not very used to that, but eventually he pulled it off. He openly admitted that he was nervous. The unplugged sound of Greyhoundz was supported by piano accompaniment courtesy of Enrique De Dios of Brigada. The highlight of Greyhoundz set is performing “Taking It U High” with Ian Tayao of Queso, Jamir Garcia of Slapshock and Bugoy of Zoooom. That was so awesome!

Jamir Garcia of Slapshock

After Greyhoundz, there was a 15 minute intermission then it was Slapshock’s turn to showcase their songs unplugged. The interesting part of Slapshock’s set was the violin accompaniment. It added to the mysterious goth effect in their songs. My favorite Slapshock performances are “Agent Orange”, the violin intro was hair raising and their last song “Carino Brutal”, Jamir made the crowd stand up and finally released their inner urge to headbang (like me ). Guitarist, Lean Ansing, suddenly left the stage and his acoustic guitar then re-entered the stage with an electric guitar. Can’t stand to go unplugged, e?

Lee Nadela of Slapshock

I am glad that Splintr does gigs like this. It’s very interesting to deviate sometimes to what the band usually does. Congratulations to Greyhoundz and Slapshock for pulling of a fucking awesome unplugged gig and of course to Splintr.com. Hope you continue this!

For more photos, visit my Flickr page.

* Thanks to Splintr.com for the ticket! Love y’all!

Hearing your favorite band unplugged is a different kind of experience. This is to test the flexibility of the band to adjust, not only the volume of their amps and their guitar distortions, but taming their hardcore rock genre a bit. Splintr.com will be holding 2 separate unplugged concerts on June 19 and June 26 at the Teatrino, Promenade Mall Greenhills. Performances on June 19 will be Sino Sikat? and Typecast while on June 26th will be Greyhoundz and Slapshock. Tickets are sold for only Php 475 for 1 night but if you will decide to buy for the 2 separate nights, you’ll get them for only Php 850. Buy your tickets now because only 200 tickets will be sold as you know Teatrino is a small venue and this will make sure that buyers will have their ultimate acoustic experience of these bands. By the way, the show will be directed by Quark Henares.

See you there!

Jeanette Reyes – Jorge of Sugar Hiccup

I’ve been a fan of the band Sugar Hiccup since I first heard their first album, Oracle. It was released in 1995 and was still in grade school then. This was one of the few tapes that I bought by saving money from my daily allowance. I was totally mesmerized by the uniqueness of this band. With Melody Del Mundo’s voice, dreamy and minimalist lyrics, I was blown by the this band. I’ve only seen them perform live once, it was during the 1896 Ang Pagsilang Concert at the Folk Arts Theater circa 1996.

If you were already aware of the music scene in the 90′s, you’ll definitely know Sugar Hiccup’s single “5 Years”. It was after their second album, “Womb”, where vocalist Melody Del Mundo decided to leave the band and migrate to the US. Since then, I’ve not heard anything about Sugar Hiccup anymore. I did some research and found out that she has a new band called Stella’s Notch based in L.A. Heard some songs and they were awesome too. Anyway, going back to Sugar Hiccup, they found another vocalist, Bea Alcala which didn’t last that long too. Pollack, guitarist and one of the founding members of the band, left the band too. Moving forward to 2010, the current roster of Sugar Hiccup are Jeanette Reyna-Jorge (vocals and electric violin), Bone Pagligaran (guitarist), Russel Dacasin (bassist and the only remaining founding member of Sugar Hiccup) and Jamee Orcino (drums).

And now, Sugar Hiccup is back and is doing album tour bar gigs. They will be releasing their 4th album entitled “After 5 years” which I think will be out in August. I got the chance to see one of their bar tour gigs in Obsidian last April 30th. I bet that you will ask how does their new vocalist, Jeanette compare to the original vocalist, well I’d like to say that they are both great singers and have their individual styles. Jeanette is a soprano so she can reach the high notes in old Sugar Hiccup songs. Hearing the new line up live is a different kind of sugar high. I remember being totally mesmerized and transcended into a different dimension while I was seeing them perform live. Even though they already have changed vocalists through the years, they still give their audience that mystic and eclectic feeling. Enough with “I like the original vocalist” or “I prefer the old Sugar Hiccup” nostalgic statements because it’s not healthy. Sugar Hiccup “5 Years”

Freefish

Aside from seeing Sugar Hiccup live, I also saw other bands perform such as Freefish, Mobster Manila and Shelterr. Freefish is a fun band, because of Kish (vocalist) and they also have witty songs. You can view their performance here, sorry the video is not very clear.

Mobster Manila

Mobster Manila, on the other hand, is a punk-ska band. Another interesting band to watch.

Shelterr

Then there’s Shelterr, a heavy sounding band. Kudos to the vocalist, I can really feel his passion while singing. Anyway, going back to Sugar Hiccup, for more inquiries, you may visit their website at www.sugarhiccup.info and their Facebook page.  Again, congratulations guys and I can’t wait to hear your new album!

Sugar Hiccup with me, Karla and some of the Obsidian Team! (photo from Obsidian)

As mentioned in my previous post (in the comments section), I will be giving away 4 online concert tickets/passes for Urbandub First Decade online concert courtesy of Globe Tattoo and Pelicola.tv! The mechanics are very simple. Please see below:

1. Post any of the Official Teaser videos or posters on your blog / social network (Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Friendster, My Space, etc…). You can find some teaser videos in http://www.facebook.com/GlobeTattoo.
2. Include a link to http://Pelicola.tv/AliveOutThere on your post.
3. Leave a comment on this blog post with the link to your post to validate your entry.
4. By May 3, May 9, I’ll be raffling off Alive Out There online concert passes to 4 lucky fans (via Random.org). Great way to spend the week with your rocker friends!

I’ll be definitely be watching because I’ll try to look for myself in the audience and other blogger friends and Dubistas in the crowd. This is definitely a must-see because this is the first time that a Filipino band will be having an online concert.

* please note that I will only accept 1 entry per person.

* I have extended the contest to make sure that 4 lucky winners will indeed get the Free Urbandub Online Concert Tickets!