Originally published in the Celebrity Chronicle, September
1998 issue.
Eraserheads rock Pasadena
One such rare, but welcome, event happened on August 5 at The Loft in Old Town Pasadena - Lokalpinoysila 98, a festival of lokal Pinoy rock bands, with the Eraserheads - the Philippines’ own Fab Four – headlining. It was the E-heads’ second live appearance in Los Angeles this year, having played at the Pasadena City College auditorium in May. To see the Philippines’ most successful rock band in a smaller venue was a unique experience to the nearly 200 predominantly Philippine-born young adults in the crowd, as the band successfully recreated the vibe from their native Metro Manila club environs. Nearly-violent slam-dancing pits erupted from the first number, the raucous “Back2Me,” which caused some discomfort for fans in the crowd who wanted to simply enjoy the band rather than look out for their own safety. Fortunately lead singer Ely Buendia and company controlled it with some slower numbers. The majority of songs in the set were from their recent Sticker Happy album, among them the Santana-inspired Latin rock of "Bogchi Hokbu," the Beatlesque “Spoliarium” and the slacker-friendly "Maalalahanin," of which drummer Raymund Marasigan left the drumkit and played rhythm guitar and sang lead, while keyboardist Noel Garcia commandeered the drums. Better yet for the crowd was the more familiar early material, such as “Huwag Mo Nang Itanong,” which erupted into a major sing-along. For a band with a six-album repertoire, their hour-plus set wasn’t nearly enough, but true to E-heads form they broke out into a couple medleys of older material. Frocked by jetlag and travel fatigue (having played in Chicago just a few days before), the E-heads appeared a bit more weary, which was one of the main differences between this show and their previous L.A. area show, where they exuded much more excitement and energy. Fortunately, the musicianship was not lost on them at all, and their sound was much better in this smaller venue than in the last. Also not lost was their willingness to please the crowd - with "10 minutes to go," they nevertheless proceeded into their power ballad "Ang Huling El Bimbo" (which won them an MTV Asia Viewer’s Choice Award last year) and segued quickly into their ’97 hit "Harana" before ending their set. You can wear out the E-Heads, but you can't kill their spontaneity. Opening for the E-heads were five Southern California Filipino-American rock bands, most notable were Long Beach’s Mungo, which hurled a progressive skaterpunk-funk-hiphop-jazz-hardcore sound towards the audience. Aside from the guitar-bass-drums-vocals setup, Mungo included a live turntablist (DJ Havik of the Beat Junkies) who helped the band stand apart for the rest, adding not only hip-hop inspired record scratching, but sound effects (such as the shrieking strings of the “Psycho” movie theme) as well. The L.A. band Signal 3, a downright Pinoy hardcore punk band slammed the growing audience in more ways than one. More than several bouts of slam dancing/moshing erupted, but who can blame them? The band blazed through fifteen songs in roughly a quarter of an hour, including a section of all-Tagalog punk numbers. The other three bands, L.A.’s Alterground, Azusa’s Skwarel and Glendale’s Sickstrings each offered the same guitar-driven pop sound for which the Eraserheads were famous for. They all appeared to be relatively new bands that suffered from a lack of tightness at times, but for the crowd, Pinoy pride mattered more than perfect performance. Regardless of the style or quality of
the bands involved, this was an event long overdue, and a great opportunity
for all. And even for the acts that were a little rough-on-the-edges, who
better than the Eraserheads themselves to perhaps inspire them to reach
for higher musical ground?
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