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"Strum" had a nice arpeggio intro,
but don't let the clean, stereo, chorus effect fool you, because this song transcended
to a full blast, distorted Punk-o-rama song.
If an atari video game can be a band, Galaga would be the perfect live music behind
the joystick controls. With the only original member of Galaga, singer/songwriter,
Andre Vogel had called up his friends of session musicians to ask if they wanted to
play this festival. Successfully, Andre's friends agreed and Galaga was back in the
scene and played their thirty-minute set of Noisepop melodies. Having played most of
the San Francisco clubs and even touring Taiwan, the band is famous for their use of
multiple amplifiers and alternative guitar tuning. For a set of musicians who had
minor practice rehearsals before the festival, Galaga had performed songs like
"Diamond Ring," "Sick of my Name," "Anthem," "Rewind," "Rubber Soul," and "Hyperspace,"
with flying colors and had gotten the respect and appreciation from the Bindlestiff
audience.
Bobby Banduria with his eclectic band (Captain Boogie Nights, G, Bong Agong, and
Fernando Funk) headlined the last night of the festival all dressed in Barong Tagalogs
(traditional Filipino attire). They returned to the festival to promote their first
CD release "Shiny Silver Jeepney." Voted the best Banduria player by the Bindlestiff
staff and volunteers, Mr. Cool shades and side burns was back and started their set
with "Burn," a perfect song to relate to the theater's warm air. Other songs like
"Let Go My Jewels" demonstrated a fine recital piece between Captain Boogie Nights
and G, while "Pandanggo ni Bobby" blew the audience away with its own version of a
classic Filipino folk song. If Van Morrison made it to the charts with a song about
a girl's brown eye, wait till you hear "Brown Skin Lady," a song originally composed
to attract girls but at the same time pays tribute to the modern Filipina. As the
band members switched their musical parts to stage acting (they are all professional
stage actors), they focused more in studying and memorizing their scripts rather
than playing their instruments.
The festival had become a bi-annual ritual for people in search of original Pinoy
driven music. It was not only Filipino-Americans who attended the three-day festival,
but people of different races were there to support the bands. The piNoisepop music
festival invited you to a very cultural experience. Each night of the festival had
a different feeling, but all together, piNoisepop 4 was one of the most memorable
festivals the production had encountered.
Captain Boogie Nights described the festival: "One of the best things about
piNoisepop is how a lot of musicians have become friends as a result of playing
at the festival. It's more than a gathering of musicians and music-lovers -- it's
also developing into a community of artists and audiences who dig each other's styles
and tunes. What's really important from my perspective is helping to support the work
of piNoisepop - providing a professional and fun venue to play in and experiment with.
You'd think that with the fourth time the event has been put together that you'd hear
the same music. Quite the contrary my friend, PP4 was probably the most eclectic
gathering yet, and not just for the sake of being eclectic. There was great variety --
from Kayumanggi's world beat/rock groove to E:trinity's drum'n'bass to Galaga's
hard-rockin' soul -- but there was also great musicianship." Trisha Saria, the
lead singer of Skyflakes, exclaimed that "[piNoisepop] was an experience, not
just a concert."
The next piNOISEpop Music Festival is on February 22-24, 2001.
Essay provided by: Jesus Perez Gonzales
Photographs: Kate Marcos
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