Sa ikauunlad ng bayan! OPM ang kailangan!

On October 1, 2012, as the President sold his senatoriables running under the Liberal Party and former president Erap, Senate President Enrile, and Vice President Binay raised the hands of their UNA Party candidates, I found myself at swanky Makati Shangri-la, listening to our local musicians talking about, uh, Original Pilipino Music’s death. 

 

The poor host could barely survive the put-downs, all necessary by the way. Basti Artadi of Wolfgang thought it a foregone conclusion that there ain’t no death here. Ebe Dancel said the notion should not even be justified with an answer. 

 

I am not one to choke on a fantastic spread for lunch, but it can only be difficult hearing someone failing at revising a question that’s been dissed to her face. It didn’t help that she was obviously no rakenrol chick, and did not even know enough to introduce Basti by name. Between that and the “Is OPM dead?” question asked over and over, I was so glad for the comfort that this space afforded me, food included.

 

Of course it was also quite overwhelming to see these rock stars in seats near mine, when they usually all but occupy my iPod. I comfort myself with the fact that going to gigs means being about this near to them, what with the cramped space, loud music, and cheap alcohol rendering familiarity default. Also, my writer-self always saves me from discomfort: the ability at taking stock of who’s standing beside me (it’s Basti), and who’s at the table nearby (Parokya ni Edgar, Urbandub’s Gabby Alipe), is a skill I’ve learned in the past three years.

 

It also keeps me from being blubbering idiot. 

 

Fast forward to the first leg of this rockfest in Cebu, where backstage the breadth and scope of contemporary OPM rakenrol lived and breathed. A VIP pass around my wrist, some of the overflowing free rhum coke in a plastic cup in my hand, I almost wanted to go sit beside Dodong Cruz of The Youth—yes, THE YOUTH of my, uh, youth in the State U. 

 

I had to keep my mouth from dropping open in awe. 

But then again, I had yet to see Rico Blanco perform. He whose foray into spectacle might be single-handedly leveling up rakenrol as we know it. Of course this has everything to do with wearing armor and make-up and feathers on his head, but it is a stage production like no other we see on these shores. With that band making like a marching band, drums strapped to their bodies, and doing choreographed moves (wearing headdresses, too), it was clear how this current sound that is in “Galaktic Fiestamatik” was conceptualized with these performances in mind. That Blanco is able to do reconfigurations of “Your Universe” and “Antukin” with this new sound is part of the fantastic that is here. It was to the strains of “Amats” (from the Galaktic Fiestamatik” album), that I first thought to go up on that stage—the only way to see the performance for real, versus through the large screens facing us backstage.

 

Watching from the right wing of the stage, seeing that crowd in front of Blanco, it was impossible not to be enthralled really. After all, while the more critical among us would think this to be but a promotional stunt or passing fancy, to an audience used to standardized pop culture fare this has to be a shift in taste, if not a stretch in what might be seen as, well, fantastic. 

 

Of course I’ve been told that I have too much hope in local culture. But too it takes being immersed in it to realize that there is much here to be hopeful about, and that it is taking more and more guts to even do things differently. 

 

Which is not to say that the rest of the performances to be had that night, more good ol’ rakenrol and less spectacle, was any less wonderful. Or overwhelming. There is a sense here, not just of how OPM is alive and kicking, but how it just persists. Flashback to the press con, where Chito Miranda of Parokya ni Edgar talked about the fact of OPM being alive, precisely because a huge company invests in getting this array of local bands and musicians, to tour most of them across the Philippines, for their fans to enjoy on a concert stage. Of course Miranda, one of the more grounded minds there is about OPM it seems, points to how this dynamic includes their fans as well, those who support OPM, and who make their bands interesting and bankable enough, so that a huge company might invest in them for such a huge concert.  

This truthfulness of course is jarring, given this day and age of spin and celebrity creation. It is also no surprise. 

 

There is a sense of honest, unpretentious rakenrol here, if not just the good ol’ kind, that one that feels more like a gig, instead of a concert. It is the lack of snobbishness that surprises me, having gone to gigs where there is a strong I’m-a-rockstar-vibe that distances the musicians from the rest of us, mere mortals. I’m still not one to ask to have a photo taken, but anyone could pretty much go up to these rock icons and ask to do exactly that. 

 

And there is this: where one would think a lot of ego exists, what’s here instead is a lot of camaraderie. It is clear they are not all friends, but there is a level of respect that is about keeping the distances when it seems called for, as there is going up on stage and watching each other perform.

 

At some point the “Isang Tinig” theme is sung by most of them rockers, and while it might also speak of and for the alcohol brand that has produced these concerts, it seems like a fair enough deal when one considers the kind of local Pinoy music it ends up investing in. And no, this is not just about who remains profitable as artists in terms of the mainstream, but also about getting the bands and musicians who only live off the gig circuit, rarely appear on TV, and really truly remain indie. There is The Youth for one, but also in the Manila leg of this rockfest, there will be Color It Red and Dong Abay, and those doing only rare gigs like Grin Department and The Wuds. 

 

Of course the more jaded, if not the critical that sees culture as a half-empty glass, would imagine this to be nothing but a capitalist enterprise earning from our musicians. The more grim and determined would parallel this rockfest with the fact of a boycott against the concert venue, one that Sting has since joined. The answers are admittedly simple enough. 

 

There is no supporting our musicians without acknowledging that they are also cultural workers, with bankability on an undetermined expiration date. How can they not strike while the iron is hot? Certainly Sting boycotting a concert venue is a powerful thing that cripples the capitalist because of the large investment that bringing an international artist to Manila requires. But one, two, three local rock bands boycotting a rock gig that is willing to pay them well, and will get their music to the thousands who see these concerts? To me, that’s just layer upon layer of loss for the original Pinoy musikero that we want to support and help out. It’s also a demand that seems unfair, seeing as our premise is how much bigger the audience for original Pinoy music an event like this creates. 

 

And when what is being performed on stage is Gloc-9’s “Sirena,” sung with Dancel, contextualized in the machismo and rakenrol that are here, it is difficult to even imagine the power that this event yields, the possibility at change it inadvertently celebrates. Because really, there is the decision it makes to invite these artists and musicians, and it is a decision that comes with the politics that are in the songs of Abay and Gloc-9, the heavy metal music that is in Kamikazee, the honest-to-goodness fun of seeing Parokya ni Edgar having a go at drinking and performing on stage without missing a beat. 

 

It is a decision to celebrate rakenrol in all its diversity but also given its rebellions. It is a decision that we acknowledge as a good one: at this point when machinery can allow for the totally talentless to fill up the Smart-Araneta Coliseum, you have to thank heavens local companies still invest in the real musicians and artists of these times.

 

We take what we can, we work what we have. If there’s anything I realize across an October that’s been about this particular kind of rakenrol, it’s that we all survive. We do so with a little (or a lot of) alcohol, yes, but mostly we do with the ability at honesty: about what it is we insist on doing, who it is we are thankful for, how we must not compromise what we believe, how we respect the creativity we live off.

 

Watching them rakenrol icons, I’ve never felt this much hope in this country’s survival. And I say that as my field of vision begins to fill with those senatoriables spewing tired old rhetoric. 

 

Original Pinoy music and its musikero survive. Without government support, without the high-end audience who wouldn’t be caught dead in a rockfest where the ground is wet with rain and people get drunk (truly), without those people who threw out the OPM is dead tagline for size and then decided not to follow through. 

 

I tend to think: be rakenrol, before you knock it. –KG, GMA News

 

The Tanduay Rhum Rockfest is doing its final leg in Manila on October 26 at the SM Mall of Asia Grounds with (in alphabetical order) 6cyclemind, Afterimage, Chicosci, Color It Red, Dong Abay, Ebe Dancel, Franco, Giniling Festival, Gloc-9, Grin Department, Hilera, Kamikazee, Never the Strangers, Paramita, Parokya ni Edgar, Radioactive Sago Project, Rico Blanco, Rivermaya, Sandwich, Session Road, Siakol, The Dawn, The Youth, True Faith, Typecast, Up Dharma Down, Urbandub, Wolfgang, Wuds.

 

Katrina Stuart Santiago writes the essay in its various permutations, from pop culture criticism to art reviews, scholarly papers to creative non-fiction, all always and necessarily bound by Third World Philippines, its tragedies and successes, even more so its silences. She blogs at http://www.radikalchick.com. The views expressed in this article are solely her own.