Generally, 2009 has been good to me. My career and personal life is doing well and so far I haven’t encountered any big problems yet. Hopefully this will be a refreshing start in my career.

Days before 2009 year ended, I was fortunate to have spent it with my different sets of friends. First is the wedding of my blogger friends, Jay De Jesus and Aileen Apollo-De Jesus last 26th December. This is the official merging of Google Philippines and Titikpilipino.com. (not in the business sense, ok? hehe). Congratulations to the both of you and may you have beautiful children! Although your bridal car did not arrive on your wedding day, what’s important is that you were able to say your “I do’s”. Sue them afterwards so that they’ll have a dose of their bitter medicine.

Secondly, I was with my High School friends from St. Scho Manila last 29th December. It was a special dinner because some of them were living overseas for a long time and just came home for the holidays. I think this is the biggest attendance in a dinner since we graduated. We had dinner at Fish Out of Water in Greenbelt 5. Our night was filled with never ending laughter. Didn’t really need to flashback as what other friends do. We talked about our present lives and some about the future.

After our dinner, we decided to drop by Saguijo. I realized that this was my last gig for 2009. It’s been weeks since I was in Saguijo. Haven’t been there since the owners of Breadbox (the posh carinderia opposite Saguijo) were murdered. It felt so different and I was used to see a bright light glowing from Breadbox whenever I stand outside the gate of Saguijo. Hope that the culprit(s) will be captured. We have seen lots of deaths in the news as the end of the year approached. Oh please, 2010, please be kind to us.

“Mikey is the New Mong”

“Anghel” by Stonefree

Back to Saguijo, the gig started early (which I wasn’t used to) so we just saw Stonefree and Us-2-Evil-0. Gig ended at around 1:30 am. I enjoyed Us-2-Evil-0′s set. They just made a new twist of “Mikey is the New Mong” by making it “Wincy is the New Mong”. Can’t help but laugh at them while Quark and Mich were mocking Wincy. He’s still cool about it even though he forgot to plug his guitar into the amp during the last song.

This was a Rock Ed gig but Gang Badoy wasn’t there yet so there were proxy hosts for her. They already have sponsors that night such as Slenda and Enduranz, so the hosts had some games and gift packs to give away. I actually won a Slenda DVD (it’s an advantage being right infront of the host haha). Well anyway, here is the order of the bands: South Superhighway, Sugarfree, Top Junk, Chillitees, Itchyworms, Pupil, Sandwich and Join the Club.

Elmer Ona of South Superhighway or SLEX

Sugarfree – Ebe Dancel (vocals), Jal Taguibao (guitars) and Kaka Quisumbing (drums)

South Superhighway is a band composed of members namely Elmer Ona on vocals/guitars, Ben Riego on guitars, Vhall Riddle on bass and Shinji Tanaka on drums. It’s my first time to see them perform. Their songs are feel good, not so heavy.  After SLEX, Sugarfree performed their old songs like Burnout, Kwarto, Prom etc. They also performed a new song entitled “Hay Buhay” from their newest album which will be released this year. It’s a positive song about life. Ebe even forgot the title when I asked him about it. hehe.  Have a sneak peek of it below

Marizel Sarangelo (or popularly known as the comedienne Tuesday Vargas) of Top Junk.

Top Junk is a pop/punk/rock band. It’s sometimes known as Tuesday’s band because of her popularity as a comedienne. But dude, she can sing and rock! This isn’t the first time I saw them perform and they’re really good! Other members are Dennis Leung (drums), Tim Panganiban (guitars and not present during the gig) and Jerico Placido (bass).

Chillitees – Uela Basco (vocals), Allen Umali (bass), Dexter Aguila (drums) and Dan Gil (keyboards/vocals)

Chillitees brought the funky soul mood to the audience. Another great band here than never fails to make me funk a little bit. hehe.

Itchyworms – Jugs Jugueta (vocals), Kelvin Yu (bass), Chino Singson (guitars) and Jazz Nicholas (drums)

One of Itchyworms’s staff actually showed us the dancesteps in the video “Freak Out“. It was a fun set, as usual.

Pupil – (on photo) Ely Buendia (vocals/guitar), Yan Yuzon (guitars), Wendell Garcia (drums)

Teacher’s Pet Live – Pupil

The 2 bands that everybody’s been waiting for are next. Everybody was screaming as each member of Pupil came in most especially when Ely Buendia entered the scene. Oh yes, THE Ely Buendia. It’s nice that I am literally infront of him . I have the best view. Wehehe. He was wearing a cap, I was hoping he would remove it but unfortunately he didn’t. This was actually my first time to see them perform in Saguijo. They don’t usually play there.

Sandwich – (on photo) Real life couple Raymund Marasigan (vocals/guitars) and Myrene Academia (bass) with Mong Alcaraz (guitars)

Next was Sandwich. Raymund, as always, entered the room all smiling. The band performed songs from their old albums such as Butterfly Carnival and 2 Trick Pony. They sang my current favorite song “Selos” and eventually became “controversial” because Raymund and Myrene kissed! Hehe. Not just a normal kiss but french kissed. I was taking a video of it (in case you want to see the video, kindly see below) and was not able to take a still picture. Karla was able to capture the moment click here to view it Anyway, watching a Sandwich set is never boring as Raymund always like to experiment especially in small venues. While he was singing 2 Trick Pony, he inserted the verses of a song he composed when he was still with the Eheads entitled “Alkohol”. Maybe he did it because lots of Eheads listers were there but it was cool combining the 2 songs .

The last to perform was Join the Club. I was not able to see them anymore as I was so tired of standing up for 5 whole hours! Well, I know that this gig was very successful. Even though Anabel is not with us anymore, I know she’s happy seeing everyone enjoying the gigs for her.

I know that this is a super late post but I will still post it for my sake

Even Admit One is riding the bandwagon for reunion gigs. Last Wed, August 20th Admit One was in Saguijo Cafe in Makati. Bands that performed were: Cambio, Sugarfree, Twisted Halo, Fatal Posporos and Blast Ople. It was the night of reunions you know why? Sugarfree performed with their former drummer Mitch.  It was nostalgic of my college days because that’s the time when Mitch was still there. Sugarfree was singing their songs from “Unang Araw” their first album.

( Original Sugarfree line up performing “Burnout”)

Another band that reunited is Twisted Halo. It was also my first time to see them perform in Saguijo. I saw them before during a UP fair gig which I don’t remember when. They performed some of my favorite songs like Miron and Brad.

Another great news also was that it was Blast Ople’s 10th year anniversary. Quark Henares, one of the vocalists of Blast Ople, even joked that they are already 10 years and still in the underground scene :p . Well for me, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re in the mainstream or underground for as long as you do great music. I really enjoyed watching Blast Ople for the first time and they’re really very funny ( especially with Quark Henares pretending to be gay, it definitely is :p ). The band people ( meaning people from other known bands) were singing to the songs that they were performing. They suddenly became the audience.

It was my first time to be in Saguijo.. I must say it was my virgin moment. hehe. The bands that performed were Traumaligno ( I got ur cd guys! hehe listened to it, ganda! astig!), Ursa Minor, Paraluman and Queso. Well unfortunately we weren’t able to catch Traumaligno and Paraluman. We only got to see Ursa Minor and Queso. With Queso, i’m glad that I was able to catch their performance of Mottaka.. Cool! Just had 2 beers, 1 can of red horse and a bottle of San mig light. I arrived home abt 2 am.