Monday, July 30, 2007

Singing for nothing

This weekend was crazy. We had gigs for both Saturday and Sunday, the first being in FMJ for Andres' Revolusongs, the second being in CICC for Lantugi's VMDC (Visayas Mindanao Debate Championship).

We were late to both because of the lack of money for transportation. At least my horoscope was right about that. Money went out my pocket like water out of a canvas bag. Very bad.

The Revolusongs gig started really early, and when we got there at 9, we were made the second to the last band to play. And we thought the night had just begun.

We got there while a screamo band was playing. The music was fine, although the vocalist sounded like Kuya Epot, and me thinks even the prince of imps could have done better.

The next band was a Paramore rip off who did Misery Business like everybody else. They were good. A good copy though. I wish people would stop covering Paramore, it's starting to get annoying.

I realized I did move like a guy, so I wore pants to lessen the chances of looking like a drag queen. I wore red lipstick and realized it looks better than black lipstick on me. Woot. Zyra said I looked like an early-millennium Madonna. Char. The red lipstick minimized the chances of me looking like a mime too.

We played 4 songs, Paint it Black, Baby Doll, Sleeping Beauty and Lakas Tama. I felt confident about moving a bit, so I tried to move around as much as possible. Lola, I need a choreographer.

After the gig, Zy said that the moment we faced the audience, half the guys in the audience straightened their backs. I still spoke like a guy though. But when I started singing, everything was right in the world, even thought ate Chloe insists we made a lot of mistakes, nobody seemed to mind.

Then we headed for the place beside Tableya to eat. We ended up ordering a couple of beers too. The party was composed of yours truly, Ate Chloe, Ate Kim, Zyra, Kuya Epot, Ate Joan, Bang2 and Ernest (Pol sci 2nd year, classmate ni Zy).

It turns out they brought Ernest along to serve as my new object of affection, but sparks were flying in other directions. Bang and Ernest hit it off well, spending most of the night talking to each other. Kuya Epot was busy with his phone, and we were all trying to piss him by screaming stuff for the person on the other line (which in this case is of course, Faith) to hear.

Example:
"Pot, tagay na nimo" -the screamer remembers that Faith's a drinker too and that we really ARE drinking which throws off the purpose of trying to mislead.c/o anonymous
"Pot, ah, ah, ah (orgasmic cries)"c/o ate Joan
"Pot, I thought you were going to have my baby?!?"c/o ate Kim

At one point, the streaming music was "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain, and we all sang along to Kuya Epot and his phone. Even the people from the other tables were joining in. Nyahahaha.

We had enough at around 4 am.

I woke up at around 10 to have lunch with Bang, then I went back to sleep. I woke up at 3 and read the Deathly Hallows ebook I got from a forum. I'm currently on my way to the Gringotts break in chapter.

At around 5, Ton2 called to ask if we were riding with Serenata to the CICC. How could we when I hadn't even had a bath yet, and we were still going to have a final run through at Clav's (which actually took us about 30 minutes)? We were expected to be at CICC at 7.

We got ready (Bang and I in less than 5 minutes, putting on little black dresses, a little face color and boots, and ate Chloe in at least 20, getting her foundation on.), hopped onto a jeep and found ate Kim and ate Gee sitting in the studio, and I felt terribly overdressed.

When we got there, a boy band was getting ready to play. By boy band, I mean a group of pretty boys. They were called "Paradigm Shift". Jego commented that the name sounded appropriate for Debate. They said they played "Progressive Rock". They sounded like a Cueshe/Urbandub hybrid. In fairness, they knew how to play their instruments, and their riffs and stuff were more complicated than ours, but I'm not a fan of that kind of music. The kind of complications I like are the kind Muse or Mozart supplies.

Tita Lolit said I looked gorgeous, so I put it to the test. We didn't have a bass guitar or a gadget, so we borrowed from the boy band. They agreed to wait for us to play. Sam left me to think of something to show my appreciation, and it turns out all they wanted was information on Samantha. Lol.

I hung out with them for a while, and all I can remember is the bassist's name, Larkins, because I had a sim named Lady Larkin before, and because he was the only non-shy creature there (because he was the one who asked for info on Sam). They didn't believe we were going to play Lakas Tama. Sam just told me it was too loud for the event so we decided we wouldn't play it.

When the final round began, ate Gee stayed inside to listen to the debate. The rest of the band stayed outside lest we needed a quick retouch after devouring food. I didn't have much of an appetite because of pre-gig jitters, so I ate very little.

We played while the judges were deciding on who won the final round. My nerves got to me and I wasn't able to do the movement I practiced on at Clav's. Good thing it wasn't the sort of crowd that moshed. We played Sleeping Beauty, then Baby Doll, then Paint it Black. I was racking my head with spiels, but I was never good at them, so I decided against talking. In other words, I botched things up. And once again, the crowd didn't notice. Am I just too hard on myself or do I really suck?

The crowd seemed too ho hum for my tastes and I felt something missing. I asked Sam over the mic if she'd let us play Lakas Tama. The moment I mentioned the song, people started cheering. She nodded her head. That was all we were waiting for. It appears that was what they were waiting for too.

I wonder if we could ever make a song that would amount to Lakas Tama. T_T

Ate Chloe had asked Luke to tape the performance, to at least have something to upload on the yet-to-be-realized website. I watched the video and cringed.

The sound system people looked over my shoulder and watched the video. They asked if the camera person was a guy or a girl. Ate Chloe answered their questions. Then they started teasing me because I got zoomed in most of the time. I tried to reason that the camera person was just zooming on where the music was coming from, which was why he was zooming in on ate Chloe and Bang's hands, Mama Gee's, and ate Kim too. I just happened to be front man, which was why most of the vid space was given to me. All the while I was cringing and thinking, "Ayoko na makita ang pagmumukha ko. Ang kapal ng mukha kong magfront man, ang pangit koooooooooooooooooo". To stop the cringing, I stopped watching and started listening. Even that made me cringe. Sir Billy was right, people do have the tendency to hate their own voices. >.<

Jego came to say Julie was enthralled, Julie came to ask for mp3s of the songs, and Chad came to ask for an album. Nanay, pressure... Then they said byebye and Julie kissed me on the cheek.

After the gig, Sam told me someone texted her asking where she found us bloodsuckers. Wow. I've just become a mosquito. It's ate Chloe's fault. The gothic music doesn't mean you have to look vampiric. But the look works, and I was tempted to ask if Sam's textmate wanted to be fed on by a willing guitarist.

There was so much food left over, that I wondered how much the organizers spent on the extra food for the performers when they could have let the performers eat whatever was left over?

Sam's family dropped us home, were we slipped into our pajamas and went out like lights. What a weekend.

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